The twists aren’t quite as daring as the film-makers seem to believe (pre-screening, all critics received a note from the director imploring us not to reveal the final left turn) and, instead, the knottiness gets to an exhaustingly convoluted point. Jennifer Lawrence and Joel Edgerton in Red Sparrow. The drabness conflicts with the lurid, campier elements (“You sent me to whore school!”) and again, one wonders how much more fun the film could have been with someone else at the helm.

It requires a hefty suspension of disbelief that would have been easier to employ had the film been directed with more self-aware silliness (there’s also a horribly misjudged comic turn from Mary-Louise Parker that feels grafted on from an entirely different film).

But the decision to cast so many British and Irish actors in small roles (Charlotte Rampling, Jeremy Irons, Joely Richardson, Ciaran Hinds, Douglas Hodge, etc) that could have been played with more conviction by Russians is one that remains distracting until the end. It’s commercially understandable why Jennifer Lawrence would be cast in the lead role, and despite a struggle with her accent, she perfects a compellingly self-possessed stare that makes her endlessly fascinating to watch. The direction feels flat and passionless at times and while there are some impressive panoramic vistas, other stuffier scenes are so overly, clumsily lit that they’re clearly taking place on a set. There’s an uncomfortable dissonance running throughout that results in a shifting, unsure tone and one wonders what film could have resulted from a steadier, yet wilder, hand (Brian De Palma would have had endless fun with it). While some sexual content is portrayed with stunning frankness, other scenes are neutered. There’s full-frontal nudity, violent rape, implied incest, graphic torture and a darkly sexual atmosphere that leads to a number of head-spinningly nasty moments.īut for as many times as director Francis Lawrence (who led Lawrence through three of the four Hunger Games chapters) appears willing to push the boundaries, he’s also equally at home holding back. There’s a curious perversity that rears its head early in the film during a startlingly grisly shower scene and throughout, there’s a shocking willingness to go to the very edge of what’s acceptable in a contemporary studio movie. While Passengers was a weird, unsalvageable mess and Mother! an intriguing failure, Red Sparrow is not exactly the home run Lawrence could do with right now.

Red sparrow