Matthews, a former member of the CIA, advised the production on the depiction of spying. Based on historic Soviet sexpionage and contemporary Russian use of kompromat, filming took place in Hungary, Slovakia and Austria.
Red Sparrow premiered at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., on February 15, 2018, and was released in the United States on March 2, 2018. The film grossed $151 million worldwide, becoming a modest box-office success, and received mixed reviews from critics, who described it as having "more style than substance" and criticized the film's long runtime and over-reliance on graphic violence and sex, although Lawrence's performance was praised.[4][5]
Plot
In modern-day Russia, beautiful Dominika Egorova is a famous ballerina who supports her ill mother. After she was assaulted by a fellow dancer in a concert, she is approached by her uncle Ivan, the deputy director of the SVR. She is tasked with seducing Dimitry Ustinov, a Russian gangster, in exchange for her mother's continued medical care.
Meeting at a bar, the two go to her private room, where Dimitry rapes her. During this, he is killed by Sergei Matorin, an SVR operative authorized by Ivan. Ivan offers Dominika a choice: become an SVR operative, or be executed for witnessing Ustinov's assassination.
Nate Nash is a CIA operative working in Moscow. While meeting with a Russian molecode-named Marble in Gorky Park, they are confronted by the police. Nash creates a diversion to ensure his contact escapes unidentified. Nash is reassigned to the U.S. but insists he is the only person Marble will work with. Since he cannot return to Russia, he is assigned to Budapest to reestablish contact with Marble, which the SVR also deduce.
Dominika is sent to State School 4, a brutal specialist training school for "Sparrows"—operatives capable of seducing their targets with sexpionage. She excels in her training, despite some friction with her trainer, 'the Matron'. Against Matron's recommendation, Ivan and General Vladimir Korchnoi, a high-ranking official, decide that Dominika is ready for an assignment in Budapest—to gain Nash's trust and expose Marble's identity.
In Budapest, Dominika lives with fellow "sparrow" Marta, and is supervised by station chief Maxim Volontov. She makes contact with Nash, who quickly determines she is a Russian intelligence operative and attempts to convince her to defect.
Dominika inspects Marta's room and finds she has been assigned to buy classified intelligence from Stephanie Boucher, chief of staff to a U.S. Senator. When Ivan pressures her about her slow progress with Nash, Dominika claims to be helping Marta with Boucher as well.
Marta is brutally killed by the SVR for learning about Dominika's earlier incident with the gangster. Dominika is warned this will happen to her if she fails. She contacts Nash, agrees to become a double agent in exchange for protection for her and her mother, and has sex with him. Under Russian orders, Dominika travels to London with Volontov to meet Boucher and complete the trade, but covertly switches out the intelligence she supplies with CIA-supplied disinformation.
After the meeting, Boucher realizes that she is being observed by American intelligence agents, panics, then backs into traffic and is killed. Russian agents observing her realize their mission has been compromised. Suspected of tipping off the Americans, Dominika and Volontov are recalled to Moscow where they are tortured and interrogated for days.
Volontov is executed, but Dominika's claims of innocence are eventually believed by Ivan. She is allowed to return to Budapest to continue her mission of extracting Marble's identity from Nash. Instead, she convinces Nash to relocate her and her mother to America.
After spending the night with Nash, Dominika awakes to find him being tortured by Matorin for Marble's identity. She initially assists until Matorin lowers his guard and she kills him, but is badly injured while doing so. She awakes in a hospital where Korchnoi reveals himself as Marble. He explains that he was patriotic, but became disillusioned when a bureaucrat he had once offended refused to allow an American doctor to operate on his sick wife.
Korchnoi fears he will be caught soon so, instead of dying in vain, instructs Dominika to expose his identity to Ivan. Doing so would make her a national hero, and allow her to replace him as a mole passing intelligence to the CIA.
When Dominika contacts her superiors, she frames Ivan as the mole instead, using evidence she had been fabricating since she first arrived in Hungary, and blaming him for the botched exchange in London. Ivan is killed during a prisoner exchange while Nate goes along with her plan to confirm the mole's identity, and Dominika is honored in a military ceremony after she returns to Russia.
Back in Russia, Dominika lives with her mother, and receives a phone call from an unknown person who plays Grieg's piano concerto, which she had told Nash was the piece to which she danced her first solo performance.
Cast
Jennifer Lawrence as Dominika Egorova, a former ballerina who is now a "Sparrow"[6]
After Jason Matthews' book Red Sparrow was published in 2013, 20th Century Fox purchased the film rights, and signed Francis Lawrence to direct.[11] Matthews said the idea of "sparrows" and a "sparrow school" was based on State School 4 in the Soviet Union, though Russian "sexpionage" is now done by women contracted outside of spy agencies.[12][13] The Russian concept of kompromat was also influential.[12] Francis worked on adapting Matthews' book in 2015, and has said that at the time, he had reservations about the timelines of a Cold War story.[14]
Screenwriter Justin Haythe reduced the number of narrators and shifting perspectives in the novel, concentrating on Dominika.[11]Russian PresidentVladimir Putin, who appears in the novel, was also cut from the adaptation, due to Francis Lawrence's belief that it would be a distraction to have an actor play the highly public figure.[15]
Matthews, who said he based his book on his experiences in the CIA,[16] was also hired as technical advisor, to supervise the accuracy of the depiction of espionage.[11] He had the Gorky Park scene rewritten to depict espionage methods more accurately.[13]
Casting
Francis Lawrence presented the screenplay to Jennifer Lawrence, who accepted the part.[17] She stated she admired the character and his direction, with her sole point of hesitation being the "really sexual" nature of the character.[14] They met to discuss the nude scenes.[16] In 2014, Jennifer Lawrence had private nude photos stolen in the iCloud leaks. However, she drew a distinction between the film and the leak based on her consent to the film, as opposed to the leak.[17] Lawrence explained: "The insecurity and fear of being judged for getting nude, what I went through, should that dictate decisions I make for the rest of my life?"[16][18]
Matthews advised Lawrence that double agents from Russia feel "a dread of discovery, a dread of being arrested, a dread of going to prison."[13] Lawrence also studied ballet for four months.[19] Kurt Froman of the New York City Ballet coached her, as she had never studied ballet before, and spent four hours with her each day for five days per week.[20]American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Isabella Boylston acted as Lawrence's dance double.[21]
As a former member of the CIA, Matthews coached actor Joel Edgerton. Edgerton said it was difficult to consider having "an interpersonal dating-style relationship ... [and] That fact that you would have to report any of those kinds of interactions with your bosses."[16]Matthias Schoenaerts and Jeremy Irons joined the cast by December 2016.[6]
In post-production, Francis Lawrence offered Jennifer Lawrence the opportunity to view a cut of the film ahead of the studio and producers, so that she might request the deletion of any nude or sexual scenes. She declined to request any deletions.[17] However, the film was edited for the United Kingdom release to remove a garroting and secure a 15 certificate from the British Board of Film Classification.[27]
The film was originally scheduled to be released by 20th Century Fox on November 10, 2017, but in April 2017 it was announced that the film's release would be pushed back to March 2, 2018, because it was seen as a less competitive one.[1][30] The studio's adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express was moved into Red Sparrow's November slot. The first trailer for the film was released on September 14, 2017.[31] The film premiered on February 15, 2018, at the Newseum,[32] and began a U.S. theatrical release on March 2.[20]
Red Sparrow screened at FEST in Belgrade on February 28, 2018.[33] It was released in the United Kingdom on March 1, 2018.[15][34]
Home media
Red Sparrow was released on digital streaming platforms on May 15, 2018.[35] It was released on 4K UHD Blu-ray,[36] Blu-ray and DVD on May 22, 2018.[37]
Reception
Box office
Red Sparrow grossed $46.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $104.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $151.5 million, against a production budget of $69 million.[3]
In the United States and Canada, Red Sparrow was released alongside Death Wish, and was projected to gross $20–24 million from 3,056 theaters in its opening weekend.[38] It made $6 million on its first day (including $1.2 million from Thursday night previews) and $17 million over the weekend, finishing second, behind holdover Black Panther. Deadline Hollywood noted the opening was underwhelming given the film's $69 million budget, and that Lawrence's salary of $15–20 million was too much to spend on one star.[39] It fell 51% in its second weekend to $8.15 million, finishing fourth.[40] In the United Kingdom, the film was second at the box office in its opening weekend after Black Panther,[41] and went on to gross £6.4 million.[42]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 45%, based on 300 reviews, and an average rating of 5.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Red Sparrow aims for smart, sexy spy thriller territory, but Jennifer Lawrence's committed performance isn't enough to compensate for thin characters and a convoluted story."[45] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 53 out of 100, based on 51 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[46] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[39]
Manohla Dargis of The New York Times found the film to be "preposterously entertaining" and credited its success to Lawrence's performance, writing that "like all great stars, [Lawrence] can slip into a role as if sliding into another skin, unburdened by hesitation or self-doubt."[43]IndieWire's Eric Kohn, who graded the film a B, noted the performances of Lawrence and Rampling, stating that "the considerable talent on display is [the film's] constant saving grace." However, he also found that the film "doesn't know when to stop, sagging into bland torture scenes and an underwhelming final showdown."[44] Giving the film a B−, The A.V. Club's Jesse Hassenger noted its methodical nature, with its minimal action and character exploration, and remarked that Francis Lawrence "brings to this material what he brought to The Hunger Games: a sense of style that feels constrained by obligations to hit a certain number of plot points."[47]
Alonso Duralde of TheWrap criticized the derivative story and the lack of chemistry between Lawrence and Edgerton, calling the film "neither intelligent enough to be involving nor fun enough to be trashy."[48]Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 1.5 out of 4 stars and said, "Half of the Red Sparrow audience will spend at least part of the running time fighting off memories of Salt and Atomic Blonde and the Black Widow storyline from The Avengers. The other half, meantime, will wonder when spy movies became quite so punishing."[49] Simran Hans of The Guardian found the film to be sexist, writing that "it busies itself with the grim surface pleasures of ogling its central character as she is degraded in every way possible."[50] Emily Gaudette of Newsweek called the film a "sadistic torture porn" and went on to ask "how many naked women need to be assaulted in a film before a director has made his point? ... for Francis Lawrence, the answer is a pile so big it's impossible to tell the victims apart."[51]
The estimation reported by Russian publications was lower than the global average. According to Megacritic, the average score was 4.7 out of 10 based on more than 30 reviews.[52]
According to The Daily Telegraph, "The espionage historian Nigel West — whose Historical Dictionary of Sexspionage (Scarecrow Press) was originally written as a handbook for the intelligence community — questions the existence of such training schools".[59]
Proposed sequel
As of 2018, director Francis Lawrence has expressed interest in a sequel based on either Palace of Treason or The Kremlin's Candidate.[60]
Related Research Articles
Spy Games is a 1999 film directed by Ilkka Järvi-Laturi, and starring Bill Pullman, Irène Jacob, and Bruno Kirby. Written by Patrick Amos, the film is about a jaded CIA agent and a young and beautiful SVR agent fighting to save the world, their lives, and their secret love in post Cold War Helsinki. Filmed in Helsinki, Finland and New York City, the movie incorporates elements of romance, action, and thriller genres. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 10 September 1999.
Joel Edgerton is an Australian actor and filmmaker. He is known for his portrayal of Will McGill on the first two seasons of the Australian drama series The Secret Life of Us (2001–02), and for playing Owen Lars in the Star Wars films Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005), a role he reprised in the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022). For his portrayal of Richard Loving in the 2016 historical drama Loving, he received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture.
The Hotel Gellért is a historic Art Nouveau hotel established in 1918 and located on the west bank of the Danube in Budapest, Hungary.
Harold James Nicholson is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer who was twice convicted of spying for Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).
Jennifer Shrader Lawrence is an American actress and producer. Lawrence is known for starring in both action film franchises and independent dramas, and her films have grossed over $6 billion worldwide. The world's highest-paid actress in 2015 and 2016, she appeared in Time's 100 most influential people in the world list in 2013 and the Forbes Celebrity 100 list from 2013 to 2016.
María Aline Griffith (y) Dexter, Countess of Romanones was an American-born Spanish aristocrat, socialite, and writer who worked in the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II and later for the CIA as a spy. The spouse of Luis Figueroa y Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno, a Spanish grandee, she was a close friend to world leaders and celebrities including Nancy Reagan, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Audrey Hepburn.
The Illegals Program was a network of Russian sleeper agents under unofficial cover. An investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) culminated in the arrest of ten agents on June 27, 2010, and a prisoner exchange between Russia and the United States on July 9, 2010.
Russian espionage in the United States has occurred since at least the Cold War, and likely well before. According to the United States government, by 2007 it had reached Cold War levels.
Kristof Konrad is a Polish-American film, television, theatre, actor, acting and character movement coach, voice and breath coach, and the Alexander Technique teacher. For over twenty years, he has successfully worked in film and television in both the United States and Europe, working with directors such as Kenneth Branagh, Francis Lawrence, Ron Howard, and Roland Emmerich and working opposite actors such as Jennifer Lawrence, Robin Wright, Kerry Washington, Jennifer Garner, and many more. He currently resides in Los Angeles and works internationally.
Spy is a 2015 American spy action comedy film written and directed by Paul Feig. It stars Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, and Jude Law, with Miranda Hart, Bobby Cannavale, Peter Serafinowicz, Morena Baccarin, Nargis Fakhri, and Allison Janney appearing in supporting roles. The film follows unorthodox secret agent Susan Cooper (McCarthy) as she tries to trace a stolen portable nuclear device.
Allegiance is an American spy drama television series adapted from the Israeli series The Gordin Cell. The series premiered on February 5, 2015, on NBC.
Berlin Station is an American drama television series created by Olen Steinhauer. The series stars Richard Armitage, Rhys Ifans, Leland Orser, Michelle Forbes, Richard Jenkins, Keke Palmer, Ashley Judd, John Doman, Tamlyn Tomita, and Ismael Cruz Córdova. Bradford Winters had been showrunner for its first two seasons, with Jason Horwitch taking over for season 3.
Red Sparrow is a novel written by Jason Matthews, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative, published by Scribner on June 4, 2013. The book describes the mundane aspects of the intelligence field, the techniques it employs, and Red Sparrow's unique ability to discern the nature of people by seeing their emotions in colors.
Sexpionage is the involvement of sexual activity, intimacy, romance, or seduction to conduct espionage. Sex, or the possibility of sex, can function as a distraction, incentive, cover story, or unintended part of any intelligence operation.
The Spy Who Dumped Me is a 2018 American action comedy film directed by Susanna Fogel and co-written by Fogel and David Iserson. The film stars Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon, Justin Theroux, Sam Heughan, Hasan Minhaj, and Gillian Anderson and follows two best friends who are chased by assassins through Europe after one of their ex-boyfriends turns out to be a CIA agent. The title is a play on the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. It was filmed in Amsterdam and Budapest from July to September 2017. The film was released in the United States on August 3, 2018, by Lionsgate and grossed more than $75 million, while receiving mixed reviews from critics, who questioned the film's intended genre and tone but praised the performances.
Anna is a 2019 action thriller film written, produced and directed by Luc Besson. The film stars Sasha Luss as the eponymous assassin, alongside Luke Evans, Cillian Murphy, Helen Mirren, and Alexander Petrov.
The seventh season of the American television drama series Homeland premiered on February 11, 2018, and concluded on April 29, 2018, on Showtime, consisting of 12 episodes. The series started as a loosely based variation of the two-season run of the Israeli television series Hatufim created by Gideon Raff and is developed for American television by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa.
Gunmetal Gray is the sixth novel by Mark Greaney, published on February 14, 2017 by Berkley Books. It is also the sixth book in the Gray Man series. Picking up after the events of Back Blast, Court Gentry, back in the employ of the Central Intelligence Agency after five years as a fugitive, has to capture a rogue hacker working for the Chinese military who is on the run from his former employers. The book was dedicated to prominent thriller writer Dalton Fury, who died in 2016. The novel debuted at number 10 at The New York Times Bestseller list.
Jason Matthews was an American author of espionage novels and former CIA officer, best known for the Red Sparrow spy novel trilogy.
Treason is a British spy thriller television miniseries created by Matt Charman for the streaming service Netflix. It stars Olga Kurylenko, Oona Chaplin, Ciarán Hinds, and Charlie Cox.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
