Red Sparrow (2018)

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

Ballerina Dominika Egorova is recruited to 'Sparrow School,' a Russian intelligence service where she is forced to use her body as a weapon. Her first mission, targeting a C.I.A. agent, threatens to unravel the security of both nations.

Trailer:

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I will watch just about any movie that has even a minimal amount of dancing so I'm looking forward to at least seeing the ballet scene(s)! Jennifer Lawrence did train for four months with Kurt Froman (a former NYCB dancer who trained Natalie Portman for Black Swan), but Isabella Boylston (a principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre) is her dance double.  Sergei Polunin, who gained mainstream fame three years ago due to this video, plays Jennifer Lawrence's ballet partner:

According to Pointe Magazine, the bulk of dancing is six minutes of Firebird (choreographed by Justin Peck) at the beginning of the movie. Although Jennifer Lawrence didn't do any pointe work, she still had to learn the choreography and blocking so that they could film her from the waist up. They then filmed Isabella doing the same choreography in full length shots so the footage could be spliced together. Both Jennifer and Isabella had to be filmed over and over so that they could get everything from multiple angles. Interestingly, they shot the performance scene with an audience of about a thousand people in the theater.

New York Times article about Jennifer Lawrence's ballet training for the movie (there is a minor plot spoiler in this article - I say this as a total spoilerphobe). Director Francis Lawrence (who also directed Jennifer in The Hunger Games trilogy) says he never intended to pass off the dancing in the film as Jennifer. Apparently people learned their lesson after the Natalie Portman debacle.

Edited February 28, 2018 by ElectricBoogaloo

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Director Francis Lawrence (who directed a ton of music videos in the late 90s/early 00s including Britney Spears' Slave 4 U, Shakira's Whenever Wherever, and videos for Janet Jackson, Pink, Jennifer Lopez, Green Day, Will Smith, the Black Eyed Peas, Audioslave, Destiny's Child, Aerosmith, Seal, Nelly Furtado, the Backstreet Boys, Wyclef Jean, etc) discusses the movie:

[Inquisitionist]

From the New York Post's review:

Quote

The film's unquestionable high point is Lawrence's character bellowing the accusing line in her Boris-and-Natasha accent: "You sent me to whore school!"

Yeesh, is this the best role available to an Academy Award winner who can pick and choose?  When I saw previews a few months ago, I thought it looked like a high-falutin' version of Fifty Shades.  Couldn't believe it was Jennifer Lawrence.

[knitorpurl]

Went to this tonight with friends. First time in memory that I walked out of a movie. All five us just couldn't take any more.

Spoiler

After the third rape scene it was too much. The fact is she was manipulated and pumped out for her mother's health. Maybe she found empowerment later in the movie but just couldn't make it that far in.

[SeanC]

I assume this was deliberate, given the subject matter, but Matthias Schoenaerts looked so much like Putin throughout this.

[JessePinkman]

I don't understand how this movie got made. It's so reductive and maddening and I can't believe that in 2018 we're still using rape in the absence of actual character development.

Why is Jennifer Lawrence, the biggest movie star of her generation, making this type of garbage? This was like the pilot of some show attempting to latch onto the Golden Age of television without any of the depth that makes current TV interesting.

I just didn't understand any of it. Why was so much of the focus of the movie around rape and sex? It's (ostensibly) a spy thriller, it can be about other things. Of course with the world we live in a female spy would likely have to use her body more than a male spy might but that is all this movie was about. I mean, she said it, her uncle sent her to whore school.

I thought it might be interesting with them learning how to do espionage or whatever but all we got was her looking at other people shoot guns and one scene of her picking a lock really fast. The rest was about rape and seduction. Who asked for this?!

[Chaos Theory]

On 3/5/2018 at 9:24 AM, JessePinkman said:

I don't understand how this movie got made. It's so reductive and maddening and I can't believe that in 2018 we're still using rape in the absence of actual character development.

Why is Jennifer Lawrence, the biggest movie star of her generation, making this type of garbage? This was like the pilot of some show attempting to latch onto the Golden Age of television without any of the depth that makes current TV interesting.

I just didn't understand any of it. Why was so much of the focus of the movie around rape and sex? It's (ostensibly) a spy thriller, it can be about other things. Of course with the world we live in a female spy would likely have to use her body more than a male spy might but that is all this movie was about. I mean, she said it, her uncle sent her to whore school.

I thought it might be interesting with them learning how to do espionage or whatever but all we got was her looking at other people shoot guns and one scene of her picking a lock really fast. The rest was about rape and seduction. Who asked for this?!

My guess is that The Americans is entering its final season at the end of the month.  Although it doesn’t have a ton of viewership it have critical praise and those who do watch it (like me) think it’s incredibly underrated and under appreciated.  

The Americans does focus a good deal around seduction but it is careful about it as well.  One of the longest run seduction storyline is the male spy seducing a female.  It’s actually more tragic then anything else.

But the show is also careful to show them do other things as well and focuses heavily on family dynamics.

Anyway getting back to my point.   From the trailer I thought it looked like a cheap version of The Americans.  It wants to be a two hour version of a spy thriller but it looks awful.  

Hard pass.  

Edited March 8, 2018 by Chaos Theory

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Ha, so I should just wait until someone posts the opening dance sequence online and skip the rest of this terrible movie?

[JessePinkman]

28 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Ha, so I should just wait until someone posts the opening dance sequence online and skip the rest of this terrible movie?

Yes. The first half hour of the movie isn't bad. As soon as she starts the spy stuff it goes to shit.

[Mindthinkr]

7 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Ha, so I should just wait until someone posts the opening dance sequence online and skip the rest of this terrible movie?

I think that’s what I’m going to do after reading all this. I’m sensitive to rape scenes and thought that it would be more of a spy thriller. 

[knitorpurl]

Glad to see that I was justified in my decision to walk out of the theater. Of course, you expect sex and seduction to be a part of a  spy thriller but the rape scenes were unrelenting. And I could not see a redeeming value to sitting through any more.

The first half hour of the movie was good and the dance portion was well done. And was integral to the plot but after that it all became a miasma of sexual assault and manipulation.

[snickers]

So i read an online review from a blogger that said this was basically soft core porn...is that true? that this movie was basically made for the men????

 

If that's true than i'm passing...I have no problem with graphic sex scenes or violence, but I'm not going to pay money for a movie that has gratuitous sex scenes...the sex scenes has to have some substance/purpose! I'm not paying for 50 shades here!

 

I also heard there was full frontal male nudity-how is this not NC 17? I'm assuming it must have happened for a split second lol

 

Man what is going on with JLAW? First mother! now this? But to be honest, she hasn't been picking good material....besides the franchise movies she does, she was in Joy (which was just so so i thought), Passengers (nuff said), Serena (which i haven't seen but i heard was nothing special), and of course roles she did do well in (American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook)...other than those movies listed, the only other things she's been in is Hunger Games and Xmen...so she really hasn't been in that many movies besides her breakout role in Winter's Bone (to this day her best work in my opinion) I think she needs to go back to Indies!

 

Here's hoping Hollywood's next possible star doesn't go down her path (Timothee Chalamet)

[ClareWalks]

On 3/6/2018 at 8:04 PM, snickers said:

Man what is going on with JLAW? First mother! now this? But to be honest, she hasn't been picking good material....besides the franchise movies she does, she was in Joy (which was just so so i thought), Passengers (nuff said), Serena (which i haven't seen but i heard was nothing special), and of course roles she did do well in (American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook)...other than those movies listed, the only other things she's been in is Hunger Games and Xmen...so she really hasn't been in that many movies besides her breakout role in Winter's Bone (to this day her best work in my opinion) I think she needs to go back to Indies!

I agree, she's turning into the female Nicholas Cage and I am baffled.

[snickers]

5 hours ago, ClareWalks said:

I agree, she's turning into the female Nicholas Cage and I am baffled.

I think she got too big too fast

JLAW is talented...there's no denying that...but I think she lacks guidance....and dropping out school in 8th grade like she did didn't help....I think she gets very under the spell in a way of certain people in Hollywood, and will do whatever movie they pitch to her...regardless of whether or not its good...David O Russell, Francis Lawrence to name of a few

I am a fan of hers, but if she continues to pick bad material I don't know how much longer I will be one....her interviews/persona are starting to get old

and though i say i think she needs a mentor/someone to give her guidance....her personality strikes me as someone who would not take it

well, unless i'm itching to go to the movies soon I'll wait for dvd for this one

Edited March 12, 2018 by snickers

[Chaos Theory]

This got some really weird reviews so I avoided seeing it but decided to put it on my Netflix queue and was actually surprised I liked it.  Yeah it had a bit too much needles sexual content and the torture porn was difficult to watch but I thought the storyline itself was an interesting one.

[Proclone]

On 3/6/2018 at 4:09 PM, knitorpurl said:

Glad to see that I was justified in my decision to walk out of the theater. Of course, you expect sex and seduction to be a part of a  spy thriller but the rape scenes were unrelenting. And I could not see a redeeming value to sitting through any more.

The first half hour of the movie was good and the dance portion was well done. And was integral to the plot but after that it all became a miasma of sexual assault and manipulation.

I didn't walk out of the theater, but I can't say I found this to be a particularly good movie either.  I do remember thinking while watching, "Well, this is uncomfortably rapey."  I took a chance on think (despite thinking JLaw's accent didn't sound great even in the trailers), because I like Jennifer Lawerence as an actor and I dig a good spy thriller.  I wound up being kind of flabbergasted that she agreed to do this movie.  This wound up feeling like a movie I would have accidentally landed on, on Cinemax at 2 am in the '90s.  The rape scenes too much after the first one.  I suppose it could be argued that the first assault was integral to showing her character just how little her uncle cared about her well being, but after that, it was all just gratuitous.  I mean I get that the "red sparrow" school stuff was supposed to be dark, but do we honestly think that Russian spy schools let one student rape another in front of the entire class?  It was way too over the top and quite frankly made the assaults start to lose their impact.  It's like the filmmakers said, "I know what's traumatic! Rape, let's have our main character be sexually assaulted multiple times."  Basically, the filmmakers didn't know how to communicate trauma or emotion to the audience so they used sexual assault as a shorthand, which is both lazy and kind of gross. 

It probably could have been an interesting film.  As you said the first half hour wasn't bad.  It could have been interesting to watch JLaw (I haven't watched the film since it came out and can't be bothered to look up the character's name) character transform naive dancer to spy.  But between the uncalled for level of sexual violence and writing the main character as a bit of a cipher (I get why to an extent, but Atomic Blonde both managed to keep the main character's true motivations hidden and make me like her) it just didn't work.

[Kel Varnsen]

On 3/11/2019 at 10:59 AM, Chaos Theory said:

This got some really weird reviews so I avoided seeing it but decided to put it on my Netflix queue and was actually surprised I liked it.  Yeah it had a bit too much needles sexual content and the torture porn was difficult to watch but I thought the storyline itself was an interesting one.

I just watched it and kind of liked it too. The only thing that really bugged me was the idea that they would recruit someone who was basically a Russian celebrity for covert operations. That said I liked it way more than stupid Silver Linings Playbook.

Also it was a relatively smart R rated movie made for adults, which was neither a sequel or any kind of a franchise. And it actually had a decent budget. Can we have more of those please.

[Joimiaroxeu]

I just caught this on DVD. Oy, JL's Boris and Natasha accent. Plus, I couldn't buy someone with her body type as a prima ballerina. Not saying she's fat but she is thicker than one would expect a prima ballerina to be. Yeah, the excessive and gratuitous sexual assaults were too much but mostly the whole thing just seemed sad. Including sad for JL's career if this is where she's headed without someone like Harvey Weinstein clearing a path for her.

[Dejana]

If the point of this movie was to say that sexpionage is not at all sexy in real life (unlike in James Bond films), well done! Not even the satisfaction of the creepy, Hot Putin uncle being disgraced and killed at the end could make up for the overall grim viewing experience.

As for why Jennifer Lawrence signed on for the role, if this had been a hit, she would have had herself a(nother) franchise (the movie is based on a book series), which seems to be the future of studio films. Also, I wonder if the experience with having her photos leaked and unwittingly being made the face of the larger hacking scandal added to her being drawn to the material. Maybe it was appealing to her, to play a woman whose sexuality is exploited by others around her, and she has to navigate tough circumstances in order to fight back, but even though she survives, she's never the same. Except with Red Sparrow, it's something she willingly chose to take on and was (presumably) in control of the level of nudity/sexuality/violence engaged in by her character. [/armchair psychologist off]