If sexy thrillers are your cup of tea, then I’ve got unfortunate news for you: Red Sparrow is so bad at it that it makes a bare Jennifer Lawrence (Dominika Egorova/Red Sparrow) feel uninteresting. So uninteresting, in fact, that I’ve found watching paint dry more seductive.

Of course, it should come as no surprise that Red Sparrow is based on a novel by a man (Jason Matthews) and a screenplay by another man (Justin Haythe) as the female characters here are boringly one-dimensional. To make matters worse, acts of sexual violence and violence in general are used as plot devices to move these characters forward. It comes across as a giant cliché.

The film begins in present-day Russia where Dominika Egorova is a famous ballerina who meets a tragic accident that ends her career. Vulnerable because she has to continue to care for her mother, she is manipulated by her uncle Ivan Dimitrevich Egorov (Matthias Schoenaerts) into performing some espionage while losing control of her body. Soon, she finds herself at ‘whore school’ where she learns the art of seduction to be used as a tool for extracting information. Later on, she meets an American spy named Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton) and predictably wants to defect to the Americans. Why, you ask? Because this film was made by Hollywood and not Moscow.

Red Sparrow wants to be an erotic spy thriller about the power of women, but comes across as the exact opposite

There are some fun scenes in Red Sparrow. While not nearly as entertaining as the amusing, if flawed, Charlize Theron spy thriller Atomic Blonde, Red Sparrow does have its moments of watchable action when director Francis Lawrence offers some restraint. Sadly, these moments are too far and few in between long sequences of mind-numbing exposition and uninspired drama. The film’s runtime of 140 minutes feels criminally long. This should have been a two-hour film at best, and I caught myself subconsciously checking the time a couple of times during the more taxing bits.

I am guessing that on some level Red Sparrow wants to be an erotic spy thriller about the power of women, but it comes across as the exact opposite. With elements of rape then attempted rape, other forms of sexual depravity, torture, brutal violence coupled with the lack of actual intrigue and spy craft, Red Sparrow at times feels like sexploitation crossed with torture porn.

This begs the question: Why Jennifer Lawrence would take on such a project? Well, she answered that in an interview with 60 Minutes where she explained that she was never interested in roles where nudity was involved. After her account was hacked and private nude pictures were leaked, she was left feeling powerless and devastated. Here, she realised that empowerment was tied to consent, and using her body as she chose for her art gave her agency as a woman. This makes a lot of sense, and more power to her. It’s just a pity that she chose a film as poor and as gratuitous as this one. And while the talented American actress gives everything to the role, her performance feels lacking, especially because of a Russian accent that fluctuates and a character too stoic for the film’s own good.

Rated R for strong violence, torture, sexual content, language and some graphic nudity

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 11th, 2018