Hollywood has an obvious, unspoken problem with oversaturation. When someone (or something) is successful, there’s a tendency to ride the hot hand. Unfortunately, it makes it tough on audiences to continually see the same face repeatedly and still suspend our disbelief. Such is the case of Red Sparrow. A lofty spy-flick that’s victimized by the shackles of stardom.
While certain elements of this film were done well, those strengths are overshadowed (and ultimately forgotten) because of Jennifer Lawrence’s terrible Russian accent. Generally speaking, I like Lawrence and I know she brings talent to any project she’s working on…but this was really bad. She was almost certainly working with a dialect coach, considering the $69-million budget, but it didn’t do a whole lot of good. Director Frances Lawrence (no relation despite directing multiple Hunger Games films and who looks suspiciously like a cousin of Bradley Cooper) should have been able to catch the problem early on and maybe he did. However, I suspect the role was made with J-Law specifically in mind and any problems that arose from the distracting accent issue were just swept under the rug. That being said, I’m surprised they didn’t just go the Avengers route, especially since this entire plot is basically a knock off of the Black Widow character. Don’t even worry about the Russian accent and don’t bother explaining why there isn’t any accent at all like Marvel did with Scarlett Johansson, who sounded more like a Brooklyn native saying her own name, “Natasha Romanoff”, than an ex-Soviet Special Agent. Butchered intonation aside, the Oscar winning actress had her moments…it’s just too bad those moments required her to talk more. But even in between the dialogue, she has the same hollow look on her face for the majority of the film. Better luck next time.
The Justin Haythe screenplay leaves out the most interesting element from Jason Matthew’s novel and focuses heavily on Lawrence’s lead as Dominika Egorova. A prima ballerina in the Russian ballet who suffers a career ending injury and is forced to work off her debt to the state. Egorova somehow becomes not just the best student in training, but the best ‘red sparrow’ ever in a remarkably short period of time and with very little training. The drastic jump points to a rushed product that was too eager to get the main spy-game rolling. Sure, that aspect was pretty well done but the movie is still nearly 2 ½ hours and you feel every minute of it. Thankfully there were some good performances which made the lengthy runtime a bit more palatable.
Joel Edgerton continued to show why he’s busy man. Despite his one particularly awkward role as Ramses in Gods of Egypt, the Australian actor has consistently delivered strong performances no matter the depth of the role. His turn as Nate Nash provided the real heart of the story and his chemistry with Lawrence was much better than her’s with Chris Pratt in the much maligned Passengers. He’s got a couple more project in the pipeline for 2018 and I suspect we’ll see him begin to edge his way into awards contention in the not too distant future.
Supporting roles were the foundation for small victories the film manages to achieve and Matthias Schoenaerts was a big reason for that. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that his character, Vanya Egorov, had a striking resemblance to a young Vladimir Putin. He’s incredibly unlikeable, but that’s kinda the point. An ambitious social climber in with the deep state, he’ll do anything and everything he can in order to amass more power. The rest of the Russian leadership we get to see is composed of Ciaran Hinds, Charlotte Rampling and Jeremy Irons. Between the three, they do little to help convince the audience of any Russian authenticity and Irons, save for one moment, doesn’t have any moments that are worthy of his name being attached to the project. Ultimately, the whole thing could have been significantly better had the story been focused around his character instead.
Speaking of lacking Russian authenticity, this movie wasn’t even filmed in Russia…at all. Jo Willems, who’s worked with both Lawrences on the Hunger Games, still did a lot with the cinematography in order to paint a better picture. The framing is very strong, especially some of the interior shots at the ballet and the ‘sparrow school’. The exteriors are mostly cold and bleak, but the wide shots catch enough to effectively trick us into believing that we’re seeing some parts of Russia. All things considered, Willems brought more to the table than many of the other higher priced contributors.
There are two ways to look at this film. Firstly, there’s the knee jerk reaction to say it’s terrible because of it’s obvious and annoying flaws that the filmmakers didn’t even try to remedy. That’s fair. But secondly, the spy game element isn’t terrible and there are some strengths which boost its stock. It isn’t terribly made but more importantly, this isn’t a movie we needed or really even wanted right now. Red Sparrow marks the third film in a row for the Hunger Games star that has underperformed at the domestic box office, speaking to my point about oversaturation. Fortunately for her, these films have still performed well overseas which is likely why they get greenlit by the studio in the first place. I guess it turns out there are some benefits to being the highest paid actress in the world. Rumors about her acting hiatus seem to have been pretty short lived as she has two more projects on deck for 2018.
Recommendation: Wait for this to hit on demand or streaming services. If you’re really jonesing to go to the movies, it may be worth a matinee because there’s not much in the way of strong competition at the box office right now.
Grade: C-