The search of control from the perspective of a spy

Jennifer Lawrence as Dominika Egorova

First let’s put aside our mind about spy movies where the gun fight and fist fighting is in every corner or a character that has unlimited stamina to kick some ass with their karate. I always wanted to see Jennifer Lawrence doing some action movies with no blue thing covering her skin, and this movie shows up and well.. i must say goodbye to my expectation. The guy who directed this movie is Francis Lawrence, the one who also directed I Am Legend, Constantine, Water For Elephants and it seems he is already familiar with Jennifer Lawrence because he also directed three of Hunger Games saga; The Hunger Games: Cathing Fire, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part 1 and part 2.

If you haven’t watch Red Sparrow, please consider that this movie is pretty gore and sadistic, so if you can’t take a scene with blood and stuff maybe this movie isn’t for you.

Main Highlight

Lady of deceive

The main story tells about Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) one of the best russian ballerina transform into seductive and intelligent machine by russian government. She was sent to one of special military camp by her uncle after she realized her career as a ballerina is over when one of the male performer partner broke her leg, then she discovered that it is not an accident, knowing that she took an action by herself and confront her former partner. But that is not what i want to discuss, this movie is a process where an innocent woman can turn into other personality to survive and also to help her mother. The character development is one of the strongest aspect in this movie, at the beginning you will be shown a soft character of a ballerina and then it turns to one of most dangerous agent in Russia. I think it's pretty funny though when your daily live as a dancer has to change into a military agent, i know her uncle is one of superior in Russian Government but how a dancer had that analyzing ability more than other who already serves in an army guess it runs in the family. But, in spite of that the other facts saves the character development process from infelicity.

The fact that the type of agent she was trained to be is seductive, approach the target in non-lethal way to extract information basically so maybe she was offered to became an agent plain because of her beauty. I like how the movie started grow around the main character, from the torturing room to the hotel room it shows how the character developing itself from what she has been trough and one thing that makes her strong enough to past all of the abuse is because her love to her mother. It shows that anyone can be someone else if they try hard enough to achieve some goals or when threatened, all of the things she has been trough just makes her more hungry to outsmart, not killing, her opponent. The one thing i think this movie did a really good job in character development is they never shown the main character (Dominika Egorova) in battle situation, i mean there is fist-fighting scene but the main character still seems defenseless, untrained for that kind of situations against the enemy and that is good because the movie never really shows us the main character is training for combat, in other movies maybe they will make her suddenly have some fighting abilities like a black belt martial artist. On the other side the main character still shows her "dignity" i think it's pretty clever to show her strong personality, maybe because she is an ex-ballerina that has high ego and she can't follow order that easily.

Uncle Sam and Mother Russia

This movie reminds us classic cold war between two great country, USA and Russia. Two big country with big ego fighting for power. But in this movie there is something more than just two country fighting each other, i want to highlight about the people inside. I think Red Sparrow really shows us the difference between Russian and American, the image of Russian in this movie is pretty clear they are cold, competitive and ruthless we can see it from how they dress and how they talk to each other in a dialogue, it is simple, direct and almost feel like they are trying to take control even when they are trying to convince each other there must be a doubt in the conversation there must be a slight demeaning or humiliation. On the other side, Americans are tend to be more friendly, chill, and like to make jokes even when in serious situation a little bit reckless i think. Starting from Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton) a special agent who easily attracted by women that makes him a little bit vulnerable, the way he talks to Dominika is a very different approach compare to another guy (Russian) in the movie, i think Bradley Cooper is one of the actor who also can play Nate Nash, maybe he can bring more "American" feeling to the character. The other character that complete the picture about American is his fellow officer Marty Gable (Bill Camp) a person that brings a little bit warm feeling in the middle of cold atmosphere in the movie, he shows it by telling jokes and messing around with Nate Nash. This element is one of the most important element in the movie i think because how the character act really build up the situation, giving more tense to the rivalry. Maybe it gives people choice to root for the American to succeed the mission.Maybe.

Salt?

Many people compare this movie similar to Salt played by Angelina Jolie because the main character is a spy and has an ambition to revenge. I agree there is some similarity between these two but that similarity isn't that clear, if you see it through the story or the foundation of the story maybe it is, but if you see from how the director interpret the spy, how he delivered the story with no gunfight and with a beauty and deceive instead. If we see it that way it's a totally different movie, Red Sparrow is so much darker, mentally brutal. Francis Lawrence tries to show the audience a different world of spy, not all can be solve with a bullet in your opponents head.

Francis Lawrence on comparison of Red Sparrow with another spy movie:

“There are a lot of movies that glamorize the world of espionage. I was interested in doing the opposite of that. I was interested in doing the version where it’s a very brutal, cold, violent world, where the stakes are very high.”

The Technical

Cinematography & Soundtrack/Scoring

Although there is nothing special from the side of cinematographic and scoring, the dark and thrilling ambience still covering the whole movie. The location they chose for the set is perfect though, not too stand out places for a spy to doing their activities, it is very simple look and feel realistic for every scene to happen. One of the strong component in the movie is the torture, the nude scene and the sadism of the character. It helps audience to feel the same pain as the character, it crosses the norm of humanity that every people can imagine, one of the torture scene i still remember from the movie is when Dominika tied in a chair with her face facing the floor, fully naked and suddenly the torturer turn on some death metal music with deafening volume accompanied with big splash of cold water coming from above...for real that is pretty scary to me.

Unnecessary Sadism/Gore Scene

(First Rape Scene, before blood bath)

I know i said the torture and etc is the supporting element in this movie but there is one scene when Dmitri Ustinov played by Kristof Konrad tries to rape Dominika and then his neck start squirting blood all over Dominika half-naked body because the guy with a motorcycle helmet character strangling his neck with a sharp and very thin wire. Maybe that is what happen in the real life when you strangle somebody's neck,but come on..you don't have to show the blood part just to put sadistic part in audience mind, you can make Dmitri gasping and begging for help while some dude strangled his neck.

Red Objects

I don't know if other people notice this, but i always notice that in this movie there is a lot of objects colored in red, either in the background or some dress the character wore in the movie. Maybe Red Sparrow truly means a sparrow agent surrounded by red objects. I don't know if the director put some meaning in that objects but it's really eye catching. Maybe we can make some competition to count how many red objects did you see in Red Sparrow..Lol

(Red curtain on the background)

(MORE RED!)

Conclusion

Finally we are arrive in conclusion (sorry for the long post). For me it's a different spy movie, it is like a different world of spy, a different type of spy, but unfortunately the whole story is very dull. The conflict is pretty intriguing but the pace and the atmosphere itself that makes this movie a pretty boring movie hence the review score for this movie is not that high. But this movie tells a pretty strong meaning behind it, it tells about trust, hope,compassion and hard work beats talent. It tells us that to be in control is always better.

Wiseacre Score

Story: 7/10

Character: 7,3/10

Cinematography: 7,5/10

OVERALL SCORE: 7,16/10