Red Sparrow

Red Sparrow is a 2018 American spy thriller film directed by Francis Lawrence and written by Justin Haythe, based on the 2013 novel of the same name by Jason Matthews. The film stars Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Charlotte Rampling, Mary-Louise Parker, Jeremy Irons, and Ciarán Hinds. It tells the story of a former-ballerina-turned-Russian intelligence officer, who is sent to make contact with a CIA officer in the hope of discovering the identity of a mole.

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, 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.

Plot

In modern-day Russia, famous ballerina Dominika Egorova supports her infirm mother. Her career abruptly ends after her dance partner injures her during a performance. After the Bolshoi cut her off, Dominika's Uncle Ivan, the deputy director of the SVR, reveals that her ex-partner, Konstantin, and a rival dancer, Sonya, who were lovers, deliberately injured her. Dominika seeks retribution by ambushing them in the Bolshoi showers and beating them with her cane, injuring both. To avoid prosecution and receive financial support, she agrees to help Ivan. She is tasked with seducing Dimitri Ustinov, a Russian gangster, in exchange for her mother's continued medical care.

Meeting at a bar, the two go to her private hotel room, where Dimitri rapes her but is quickly interrupted and garroted by Sergei Matorin, an SVR operative authorized by Ivan. They flee to a safehouse and 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 mole code-named Marble in Gorky Park, they are confronted by the police. Nash creates a diversion to ensure his contact escapes unidentified while reaching the U.S. Embassy. 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— where she's given the alias, Katya, and revealing her true identity and profession is forbidden. 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 Sergei Matorin after Dominika told her about the earlier incident with Ustinov. Dominika is then warned by Sergei that the same fate would befall her should she open her mouth about that again. 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, using evidence she had been fabricating since she first arrived in Hungary, and blaming him for the botched exchange in London. Ivan is killed by a sniper 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, with Korchnoi present at the ceremony.

Back in Russia, Dominika lives once again with her mother. She is now free to enjoy watching a ballet performance at the Bolshoi from the balcony, but leaves just before the end of the closing act. The film ends with her receiving a phone call from an unknown person who plays Grieg's piano concerto, which she had previously told Nash was the piece for her first solo performance. She smiles.

Cast

Production

Development

After Jason Matthews' book Red Sparrow was published in 2013, 20th Century Fox purchased the film rights, and signed Francis Lawrence to direct. 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. The Russian concept of kompromat was also influential. 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.

Screenwriter Justin Haythe reduced the number of narrators and shifting perspectives in the novel, concentrating on Dominika. Russian President Vladimir 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.

Matthews, who said he based his book on his experiences in the CIA, was also hired as technical advisor, to supervise the accuracy of the depiction of espionage. He had the Gorky Park scene rewritten to depict espionage methods more accurately.

Casting

Francis Lawrence presented the screenplay to Jennifer Lawrence, who accepted the part. She stated she admired the character and his direction, with her sole point of hesitation being the "really sexual" nature of the character. They met to discuss the nude scenes. 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. 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?"

Matthews advised Lawrence that double agents from Russia feel "a dread of discovery, a dread of being arrested, a dread of going to prison." The role also required Lawrence to study ballet for four months. Kurt Froman of the New York City Ballet was brought in to coach her for a minimum of four hours each day for five days per week. American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Isabella Boylston acted as Lawrence's dance double.

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." Matthias Schoenaerts and Jeremy Irons joined the cast by December 2016.

Filming

Principal photography started in Budapest and Dunaújváros in Hungary on January 5, 2017. Other filming locations include Festetics Mansion in Dég, Hungary; Bratislava, Slovakia and Vienna, Austria.

Post-production

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. 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.