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Jennifer Lawrence is tied to a chair, beaten and tortured. She is the victim of rape and attempted rape. She is forced to strip naked in private and in public. She is slashed, stabbed and has a gun put to her head.

Ostensibly, such graphic ordeals are intended to demonstrate the physical and psychological fortitude of her character, a Russian spy named Dominika Egorova. But ultimately, these shocking and violent sequences become repetitive and gratuitous, making “Red Sparrow” feel more like a cheap exercise in exploitation than a visceral tale of survival.

Surely there’s more to spycraft than knowing the perfect spot to caress on a target’s thigh, or how delicately to whisper into his ear. But this is about the extent of the training she receives. (Oh! She also learns how to pick locks.) Dominika is right when she complains that she’s been sent to “whore school” alongside other attractive and tough-minded young people who are being molded to serve Russia’s secret intelligence. What she endures is more than just degrading—it’s destructive. And as a solitary tool set, it wouldn’t seem to prepare her for the many dangers headed her way.

“Red Sparrow,” which Francis Lawrence directed from Justin Haythe ’s script, is based on the novel by Jason Matthews . But it’s impossible to watch it without comparing it to last summer’s stylish and kinetic “ Atomic Blonde ,” another physically demanding espionage thriller starring Charlize Theron . That film truly was about female empowerment—about a woman using every inch of her body to achieve her goals while also having agency over her fate. The fact that Dominika is told early on that her “body belongs to the state”—which was the case long before she started training to be a spy—makes her the object of constant leering, and that male gaze gives “Red Sparrow” a skeevy vibe from which it never deviates.

Director Lawrence also worked with Jennifer Lawrence (no relation) in the last three “Hunger Games” movies, so he’s familiar with putting his exceedingly capable star through the wringer. She’s certainly game for it all (despite her wavering accent.) But aside from some shocking bursts of violence, he directs “Red Sparrow” with a surprisingly dull sameness. That overall bland tone, coupled with the film’s unnecessarily long running time, makes this would-be thriller less than thrilling.

It begins with promise and verve, though, as we see Dominika at the height of her powers in her former life, performing as a prima ballerina with the Bolshoi Ballet. The great Ukrainian dancer Sergei Polunin plays her partner; sadly, he barely gets to show off his formidable abilities. But he is crucial to the on-stage accident that ends her career with a fall and a crack. (It’s one of many gory moments that’ll make you flinch and cringe in your seat.)

Dominika’s career-ending leg break also means the end of her ballet-sponsored housing and medical care that her ill mother needs. Right on cue, her uncle Vanya (yes, Matthias Schoenaerts really plays a character named Uncle Vanya) steps in with a proposal. He’s a high-ranking member of the Russian secret intelligence agency, and he has recognized cunning and scrappiness in her since she was a child. He thinks she can make herself useful to the state in order to protect her home and her mother.

That’s right. He sends her to whore school.

Charlotte Rampling , the cruel and emotionless leader of the training center (it’s actually called Sparrow School), teaches Dominika and her classmates how to manipulate people by seeking out their weaknesses, using their charms and becoming whomever they must to get the assignment done. Rampling’s character, known only as Matron, gives a speech to the class about how the West is weak, tearing itself apart with racial divisions and social media obsessions, and how it’s Russia’s time to step in and assert itself as the ultimate world power. This is about as close as “Red Sparrow” comes to addressing the renewed Cold War between Russia and the United States. (I guess a whole movie in which Jennifer Lawrence sits in a Moscow office building pumping out anti- Hillary Clinton Twitter bots would’ve been hard to market.)

There’s not nearly enough of Rampling, however. (Similarly, Jeremy Irons and Ciaran Hinds help bolster the strong cast in small roles as top Russian officials.) That’s because Dominika soon gets her first assignment: She must travel to Budapest and cozy up to a CIA officer named Nate Nash ( Joel Edgerton ), who’d been working in Moscow, and find out the identity of the mole who was his contact inside Russian intelligence.

Lawrence and Edgerton suffer from a woeful lack of chemistry together, a component that’s essential to determining whether the entire movie works. The way they dance around one other—flirting, feeling each other out—provides some intrigue and suspense at first. But they drop their facades far too quickly, and the ensuing romance has barely any spark. They never make us believe the sacrifices they’re willing to make for each other; we just have to go with it as the plot chugs along.

Thankfully, there’s Mary-Louise Parker , who provides a much-needed respite from this slog. She has a quick but significant supporting role as the chief of staff to a United States senator who’s too drunk to realize she’s not nearly as slick or savvy as she thinks she is. She finds herself in over her head while trying to sell secrets to the Russians and ends up getting squeezed in the midst of a power play between various double-crossing agents. It’s the film’s most suspenseful segment. And for one brief, glorious moment, she breathes life into a movie that never truly takes flight.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Red Sparrow (2018)

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

139 minutes

Jennifer Lawrence as Dominika Egorova

Joel Edgerton as Nathaniel Nash

Jeremy Irons as Vladimir Korchnoi

Ciarán Hinds as Alexei Zyuganov

Matthias Schoenaerts as Vanya Egorov

Joely Richardson as Nina Egorova

Mary-Louise Parker as Stephanie Boucher

Charlotte Rampling as Matron

Francis Lawrence

Writer (based upon the book by)

Jason Matthews
Justin Haythe

Cinematographer

Alan Edward Bell
James Newton Howard

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Red Sparrow Reviews

In post-Hunger Games mode, Jennifer Lawrence continues her streak of pushing the envelope. Even if her accent feels awkward at times, she is mostly convincing as a Slavic agent...

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

Most of Red Sparrow looks slick and, somehow, doesn't overstay its welcome, even while being mostly forgettable.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 14, 2022

[Red Sparrow] looks good, has a strong lead performance, and it never becomes boring. But, it also lacks a lot of what audiences will probably want out of a movie like this.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 29, 2021

There are better examples of this kind of movie out there.

Full Review | Jul 20, 2021

A rare misstep from Jennifer Lawrence...

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | May 18, 2021

Feels overlong as the twists and turns pile up like empty vodka bottles outside the Kremlin bar.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 4, 2021

On the surface, nearly none of it is clever, which is quite disappointing in a movie about espionage and duplicity and triple-crosses.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Dec 7, 2020

...it's just a flat, disappointing thriller that doesn't really do anything but show off Lawrence's beautifully toned body.

Full Review | Nov 6, 2020

If "mother!" is up for the Razzies this weekend, there's a chance that "Red Sparrow" will do the same next year.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 29, 2020

The issue isn't the film's slow pace; it's its duration and lazy screenwriting that use violence and sex like a slap to the back of the head.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 23, 2020

The main pieces of Red Sparrow, but the lack of developing secondary parts keep the movie from being a complete spy movie.

Full Review | Jul 20, 2020

The trouble with Red Sparrow is that it doesn't realize it's a down and dirty sex thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jul 17, 2020

I guess I can say maybe see it once, mostly for Lawrence's performance and its intricate plot. I just don't know that I ever need to revisit the movie.

Full Review | Jul 7, 2020

"Red Sparrow" mistakes a slow pace for a slow burn. For a film that aims to be tense and thrilling, to keep the audience on a wire, there's little suspense.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Jul 1, 2020

Lawrence is allowed to let her rich talents as an actor breathe life into a character that might have otherwise been played as shallow and far less interesting.

Full Review | Jun 2, 2020

This movie is dark.

Full Review | May 18, 2020

I really liked this movie.

Red Sparrow is a dense, thoroughly adult espionage tale, the likes of which are rarely seen at the multiplex.

Full Review | Mar 20, 2020

Director Francis Lawrence... seems to have reasoned that, because Russian literature is so long and slow, making his movie long and slow would be the path to authenticity.

Full Review | Mar 9, 2020

This is not entertainment, especially when the drawn-out brutal scene goes on and on and on. Way too gross and unnecessary.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 30, 2020

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Film Review: ‘Red Sparrow’

Jennifer Lawrence gives a star performance as a Russian spy driven by survival in an espionage thriller that's (gratifyingly) more talk than action.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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In pumped-up espionage potboilers like “Atomic Blonde” or “Salt,” Charlize Theron and Angelina Jolie have gone through the motions of imitating male action stars at their most kick-ass grandiose. They’re slickly “empowered” women, yet it’s hard to distinguish that power from the thriller-video decadence of 21st-century action filmmaking.

In the elegantly tense and absorbing “ Red Sparrow ,” on the other hand, Jennifer Lawrence portrays a Russian spy who’s a cunningly desperate human being — or, at least, enough of one that each scene rotates around the choices she makes, the way she appraises and seizes the destiny of the moment. Lawrence, in this movie, shows you what true screen stardom is all about. She plays a spy as someone who acts out a role, but does so (paradoxically) by acting as little as possible; she cues each scene to a different mood, leaving the audience in a constant state of discovery. We’re on her side, but more than that we’re in her head. Even when (of course) we’re being played.

Directed by Francis Lawrence, who made the last three “Hunger Games” films, working from a script by Justin Haythe (based on the 2013 novel by Jason Matthews, a former C.I.A. operative) that taps the audience’s intelligence rather than insulting it, “Red Sparrow” presents Lawrence’s character, Dominika Egorova, as a victim who is cast into a state of peril she has to dig her way out of, one ominous chess move at a time. The movie is a thriller, but it’s also a kind of sexualized nightmare, and that’s the boldness of it. Dominika starts off as a prima ballerina with the Bolshoi Ballet, dancing before the glitterati of Moscow in a costume of resplendent red and gold. But her career is cut short by a horrific on-stage collision (not an accident, as we soon discover). It’s here that she confronts what it means to be a pawn in the ruthless new Russian state (the same, it seems, as the old state). We also learn that when her fury flies, there will be blood.

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To Western eyes, Dominika lives in a very modest flat, which she shares with her mother (Joely Richardson), whom she’s devoted to taking care of. But as soon as her dancing days end, she learns that she’s going to be stripped of her health insurance and the apartment. It’s a dread-ridden slipping-out-of-the-middle-class scenario, and it spurs her to take up the offer of her uncle, Ivan (Matthias Schoenaerts, gleaming like Vladimir Putin’s bureaucrat-sociopath son), who happens to be the deputy director of Russia’s external intelligence agency, the SVR. He will keep her afloat, as long as she agrees to carry out a mission.

For a relatively traditional spy thriller, “Red Sparrow” is more up-to-the-minute than it looks — more so, even, than the filmmakers must have known when they were making it. Dominika’s mission, in which she’s assigned to bed a shady businessman in a gilded hotel room, plays like a Harvey Weinstein nightmare. She winds up witnessing a murder, which means that she herself will be eliminated unless she agrees to become a recruit at State School 4, a training ground for what are known as the Sparrows. As presented, they are undercover prostitutes from hell.

That sounds like a cliché, and maybe a sexist one. But “Red Sparrow” is actually a lively critique of the Mata Hari-as-dominatrix scenario it presents to us. It’s about a heroine who has had her choices cut off by a thug patriarchy. The training school, run by the ultimate icy headmistress, played in sadistic high style by Charlotte Rampling, amounts to a series of encounter sessions in which the recruits are stripped down in every possible way. They’re reduced to being utensils (“Your body belongs to the state,” says Rampling), which they learn to manipulate. Lawrence makes her nakedness dramatic; she plays Dominika as shamed and proud at the same time. The film presents her new, transactional relationship to sexuality as a pop projection of the torments that women have endured, and there’s a resonance to that. When James Bond sleeps with someone, it’s all part of the hedonistic sport of the spying life. In “Red Sparrow,” it’s quite the opposite. Dominika deeply resents her “whore school” training. The men she faces add up to a conspiracy — sexual harassment as the dark underbelly of tradecraft.

She is sent to Budapest to have a “chance” encounter with Nate Nash ( Joel Edgerton ), an American C.I.A. operative who has cultivated a mole high up in the Russian regime. We brace ourselves for another cliché: the tale of two spies who swoon for each other — and who, by the way, is using whom? But “Red Sparrow” is an espionage thriller that’s more clever than it first appears. It contains a romantic spark (or, at least, a semi-smoldering ember), but Dominika and Nash quickly figure out everything there is to know about each other. And so the film keeps you guessing as to what’s at stake.

The basic set-up is simple enough (will Dominika sniff out the mole?), but “Red Sparrow” has enough tangles and reversals to be a fully satisfying night out. It’s more talk than action, in a gratifyingly unfolding way. At one point, Dominika joins forces with the Americans, leading to the film’s most suspenseful sequence, which features Mary-Louise Parker as a neurotic lush who’s the turncoat chief of staff for a U.S. senator. The double-crossing isn’t movieish and abstract — it’s scruffy, rooted in desperation and raw appetite. Edgerton makes Nash a down-to-earth operative, noble in his impulses but far from a superman. And Lawrence’s Dominika is gripping, because she has to keep improvising. She’s been trained to survive, and does, wriggling out of everything from extreme torture to gross come-ons from her boss. But is she calling the shots, or are the shots calling her?

Lawrence, with regal cheekbones and voluptuous bangs, has a great Slavic look, and eases into the soul of playing a Russian. She does it with an unobtrusive accent, though you wish the rest of the cast had followed suit. Jeremy Irons , as a Russian general, doesn’t even try for the accent (though he’s still very good). Schoenaerts does (sort of), and acts with a swinish glee, playing a character who’s even creepier than we imagine (he’s been fixated on Dominika since she was a child). There are no clips of Putin, and he isn’t even referred to by name, yet he’s a presence in this movie; he’s the demigod of a corruption that the rest of the characters are acting out. For the first time in a long while, a thriller revives Cold War tensions in a way that doesn’t feel corny, since the Russians, in “Red Sparrow,” are standing in for the new world order: a global marketplace of people selling themselves. It’s no wonder spying is trickier than ever. After a century of espionage, even the most undercover impulses are now out in the open, if not downright naked.

Reviewed at Regal E-Walk, New York, Feb. 15, 2018. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 139 MIN.

Production: A 20th Century Fox release of a TSL Entertaintment, Chernin Entertainment production. Producers: Peter Chernin, David Ready, Jenno Topping, Steven Zaillian. Executive producers: Garrett Basch, Mary McLaglen.
Crew: Director: Francis Lawrence. Screenplay: Justin Haythe. Camera (color, widescreen): Jo Willems. Editor: Alan Edward Bell.
With: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Charlotte Rampling, Matthias Schoenaerts, Mary-Louise Parker, Ciarán Hinds, Jeremy Irons, Joely Richardson, Douglas Hodge, Thekla Reuten.

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Red Sparrow: refreshing, but not quite as seductive as it thinks it is.

Red Sparrow review – perverse Jennifer Lawrence thriller offers mixed pleasures

The Oscar-winning actor stars as a seductive assassin in a strange, yet often flatly directed, film that boasts surprisingly extreme sex and violence but also a wealth of bad accents

W hat does the world’s highest-paid female actor do when the franchise that took her to the top ends? It turns out the answers include: take home $20m for starring in an unintentionally creepy sci-fi romance ; collect an undeserved Razzie nomination for starring in her boyfriend’s allegorical arthouse horror ; and now play a Russian assassin-in-the-making in a darkly sexual espionage thriller. One can certainly question the quality of her post-Hunger Games projects, but it’s hard to fault the ambition behind Jennifer Lawrence’s decision-making process.

Based on a bestselling novel by former CIA operative Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow sees Lawrence star as Dominika, a ballerina dancing at the Bolshoi using her position to take care of her ailing mother. But when an accident leaves her seriously injured, she finds her world in disarray, unable to dance and unable to provide financial support. Her uncle Vanya (Matthias Schoenaerts) has a solution: if she helps him out with a small job, then he can help her back. Yet things don’t go quite as she imagined and she becomes witness to a brutal murder. Rather than have her killed, Vanya sends her to a school for sparrows, young usually ex-military trainees who are taught to use their skills of seduction to get what they want from the enemy (classes include lock-picking and watching S&M pornography). After she shows an unusual defiance, she’s extracted and sent out on her first mission: to seduce and gather information from an American agent (Joel Edgerton). But can she be trusted?

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. But it’s far from a disaster. 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. 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.

But 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. While some sexual content is portrayed with stunning frankness, other scenes are neutered. 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). 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.

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. 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 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). 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.

Jennifer Lawrence and Joel Edgerton in Red Sparrow.

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. It remains largely impossible to emotionally invest in Lawrence’s character (the remoteness, while effective, prevents us from feeling like she’s a real person) and though Edgerton is solid as always, their relationship is even harder to care about. There’s a frustrating lack of chemistry between them that makes the much-anticipated seduction scenes feel largely sexless, and any suggestion of deeper feelings fails to convince. But despite the many flaws, an unwavering narrative propulsion drives the film and sustains interest for the 139-minute running time. Lawrence’s movie-star magnetism keeps us onside, curious to know what her morally conflicted character will do next, and the acclaimed source material provides a page-turning blueprint that, bar some clunky exposition, translates adequately (it might have worked better as a mini-series, though).

What will audiences make of Red Sparrow? It’s a tough sell: a bleak two-hour-plus Russian thriller with graphic rape and torture. It’s also surprisingly low on action, choosing talkiness over more audience-pleasing mayhem. It doesn’t entirely work, but there’s something about its full-throttle nastiness that lingers, and it’s refreshing to see something that exists in the studio system that possesses so many queasily perverse elements. It’s just not quite as seductive as it thinks it is.

Red Sparrow is released in the UK on 1 March and in the US on 2 March
Jennifer Lawrence
First look review
Joel Edgerton
Jeremy Irons
Charlotte Rampling

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‘Red Sparrow’ Review: Jennifer Lawrence Is a Badass Russian Spy Who Uses Her Sexuality Like a Weapon in Solid Thriller

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An icy Russian espionage tale that would have looked right at home in Cold War-era thrillers of the ‘50s and ‘60s, “ Red Sparrow ” explores the recurrence of queasy U.S.-Russian relations in the wake of the presidential election by giving it a human face. It turns out that the bad guys look a lot like us — or, rather, like Jennifer Lawrence , who manages the tricky proposition of adopting a Russian accent with a surprising degree of effectiveness, embodying a badass post-Soviet spy who uses her sexuality like a weapon. Director Francis Lawrence compliments the performance with an atmosphere of unease similar to his work on “The Hunger Games,” but this time, the sense of a desperate world and a woman trapped by its twisted rituals hits all too close to home.

Though it wanders a lot in its bloated running time and doesn’t quite stick the landing, the Lawrences on both sides of the camera go to great lengths to make this heavy dose of familiar storytelling resonate. Based on former CIA agent Jason Matthews’ debut novel of the same name, “Red Sparrow” finds Lawrence playing Dominika Egorova, a femme fatale in training. Initially a star ballerina in Moscow, Dominika’s injured in a sudden, shocking development during the movie’s opening minutes; three months later, she’s just moping around the house. Enter her dashing uncle Ivan (Mattias Schoenaerts), a high-ranking member of Russian intelligence who coaxes her into a scheme to seduce a wanted man.

That gig marks the first of several times that Dominika uses her body to push powerful men into a state of vulnerability, and the bloody outcome arrives not a moment too soon (actually, it arrives a moment too late — the rape quotient is disturbingly high here). The outcome leaves Dominika with a queasy choice: Join the Sparrow School, a covert spy program that teaches women how to seduce their enemies, or allow the government to kill her to preserve the secrecy of its operation.

If you think that’s an easy choice, you don’t know the Sparrow School. Suddenly, Dominika finds herself in the clutches of depraved and demeaning seminars in which students must strip and engage in sexual behaviors in front of their stone-faced classmates. Charlotte Rampling gives a monstrous performance as the headmistress, whose capacity to arouse and disturb her disciples ranks as some of her best scene-chewing in recent memory. The queasy blend of eroticism and tactical discussion wouldn’t look out of place in a Catherine Breillat movie (although some viewers may see shades of “The Handmaid’s Tale”), and it’s especially resonant when conversations about exploiting sex for power couldn’t be louder.

It doesn’t take long for Dominika, keen on surviving at all costs, to take control of the situation. Confronting a pervy male classmate by baring all, she intimidates him out of the room. Seen on its own terms, the scene ranks as the most daring in Lawrence’s career to date, a risky means of turning her own star power against the audience much as the character weaponizes her physicality.

If only the ensuing plot that allows her to put that weapon to work held the same level of intrigue. Dominika is eventually assigned to befriend CIA agent Nathaniel Nash (Joel Edgerton, so subdued it’s a wonder he never nods off mid-sentence). Her main goal requires her to determine the identity of a mole who appears to have infiltrated Soviet intelligence, and for the movie’s second half, it’s unclear whether she actually wants to fulfill this task or escape it.

She naturally begins an affair with Nash, yet even as he figures out her identity and confronts her about her motives, her allegiances remain uncertain until the final moments. But there’s no big revelation here — savvy viewers will figure out the mole’s identity long before Dominika does, and her oscillating allegiances start to feel awfully redundant when the movie has another half hour to go. There’s nothing about the moral crisis in “Red Sparrow” that hasn’t been explored a million difference ways on “The Americans,” and the movie may as well exist in that show’s expanded universe a few decades later on the timeline.

Every scene is defined by whispery exchanges and stern looks that often threaten to veer into camp, or boredom, but the considerable talent on display is its constant saving grace. (Aside from Lawrence and Rampling, there’s also a wistful Jeremy Irons as a Russian general, Ciaran Hinds as his dyspeptic colonel, and a klutzy Mary Louise Parker as a corrupt government insider.) The elegance of Francis Lawrence’s direction, cinematographer Jo Willems’ measured camerawork, and James Newton Howard’s ominous score adheres to a familiar set of beats, but it’s the rare big Hollywood mood piece and mostly satisfying on those terms.

With so many solid ingredients, it’s unfortunate that “Red Sparrow” doesn’t know when to stop, sagging into bland torture scenes and an underwhelming final showdown in its concluding act. Ever here, however, the movie resonates with a precise topicality for an audience reeling from the exhumed shadow of the Soviet threat. It’s a near-subversive maneuver to cast the world’s biggest star as an ostensible villain, whose complicated relationship to her job is all the more chilling because it ends on a state of complete ambiguity — with no clear end in sight.

“Red Sparrow” opens nationwide on Friday, March 2.

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'Red Sparrow' Review: A Spy Thriller That Explores the Brutality of Sexual Assault

Far from a breezy espionage flick, Francis Lawrence's new movie is an unflinching look at the removal of choice and the exertion of power.

Red Sparrow is not a pleasant movie by any stretch of the imagination. Rather than offering the escapism the spy genre usually provides of glamorous agents and globetrotting escapades, Francis Lawrence ’s film is a brutal plunge into a world of sexual assault and degradation. Although it plays by the beats of the spy drama to the point where it feels like the story is devolving into an extended cat-and-mouse game, Red Sparrow is at its most electrifying when it feels like a raw nerve about how power is used and choice is removed. Jennifer Lawrence gives a fearless performance that makes us want to root for her even if we know that the only way to succeed in the world presented is through dominance, control, and destruction.

Dominika Egorova ( Jennifer Lawrence ) is a prima ballerina in the Bolshoi until an accident on stage breaks her leg and ends her dancing career. Needing to support herself and her ailing mother Nina ( Joely Richardson ), Dominika turns to her uncle Vanya ( Matthias Schoenaerts ) who recruits her for a mission involving a Russian politician. When the mission goes sideways, Dominika is presented with a “choice”: die or become a “sparrow”, a subset of the intelligence service meant to use charm and manipulation to extract information. When she completes Sparrow School, Dominika is tasked with seducing CIA agent Nate Nash ( Joel Edgerton ), who knows the identity of a highly placed mole inside the Russian government. But as the mission continues, it’s unclear if Dominika is playing Nate, Vanya, or both.

Lawrence’s film exists firmly inside the spy genre, relishing the little touches of spycraft and deception, but in the deadly serious manner of movies like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy rather than the rambunctious, action-packed glory of Atomic Blonde . He renders the world beautiful and sterile, a fragile creation that’s immaculately framed, but with a symmetry that conveys confinement despite the heavy use of wide-angle lenses. It its pitch-black manner, Red Sparrow tells us that Dominika isn’t just trapped by her personal circumstances; the world itself is a cage for her.

And inside that cage sexual assault runs rampant. For all of the deception, moles, locales, and aliases, Red Sparrow is obsessed with the circumstances that create sex crimes. Although Dominika refers to Sparrow School as a “Whore School”, a more appropriate term would probably be “Rape School.” Yes, the students are taught how to seduce their targets, but the school itself, led by the unforgiving Matron ( Charlotte Rampling ), is the rapist on behalf of the state. It forces students to have sex and perform sex acts against their will, and then frames it as “sacrifice.” It also exists in circumstances where the choice for Dominika is death or doing what she’s told, which is no choice at all.

The removal of choice is the most insidious aspect of Red Sparrow , and it’s what gives the movie its haunting power. By framing the story around the removal of these choices, it provides a damning view of power and those that use it. We’re not meant to root for Dominika in the same way we’d root for James Bond or Lorraine Broughton. When she attacks the dancers who injured her, we see that she’s only as good as the world allows her to be, and that world demands unflinching brutality and no forgiveness. There’s nothing hopeful or optimistic in Red Sparrow .

Surprisingly, Red Sparrow is able to go beyond the obvious notion of “sexual assault is ugly and terrible” to create a compelling spy narrative where we want to see Dominika take control, but also know that she can only control within the confines this world provides her. There will be no shootouts. There will be no car chases. There’s only manipulation, subterfuge, and deception. Unfortunately, this ends up leading Red Sparrow down a more tedious path where it can’t seem to break out of its extended cat-and-mouse game. The film settles into a rhythm where we don’t know who Dominika plans to ruin (and it’s to Francis Lawrence’s credit that his film is so bleak that it could easily be Nash, who’s a good guy), but eventually that becomes uninteresting. The movie needs to move forward, but it gets caught up in poorly-paced plotting to set up a big reveal at the end.

Thankfully, there’s Lawrence giving another commanding performance. Like her turns in The Hunger Games , Winter’s Bone , American Hustle , and Joy among others, Lawrence does steely determination mixed with human vulnerability like no one else. She’s not a superhero here, nor does she ask for our sympathies. There’s a cold pragmatism at play, someone who understands how the game is played and that there’s little room for idealism or love. She’s not a super-spy or some cold, uncaring monster. Vanya has the proper measure of Dominika when he says she sees through people and is always one step ahead of them, and Lawrence, despite still being under 30, conveys that world-weary cynicism and knowledge better than other actors twice her age.

Even though Red Sparrow starts to burn out as it heads into its second-half (an issue stemming more from an overstuffed plot than the acting or direction), it still makes for a fairly compelling experience if only because it’s rare for a major studio to make a movie this disturbing. It’s something that Paul Verhoeven would get away with on a small budget, but Red Sparrow is two hours and twenty minutes of shocking brutality and violence. In an odd way, it’s reminiscent of the studio’s film from last year, A Cure for Wellness , a movie from a visionary director that’s both gorgeous to look at and deeply disturbing. Red Sparrow is not a fun a movie, nor is it a movie that works all the time, but it’s a movie worth seeing.

Twentieth Century Fox

Summary Dominika Egorova is many things. A devoted daughter determined to protect her mother at all costs. A prima ballerina whose ferocity has pushed her body and mind to the absolute limit. A master of seductive and manipulative combat. When she suffers a career-ending injury, Dominika and her mother are facing a bleak and uncertain future. Th ... Read More

Directed By : Francis Lawrence

Written By : Justin Haythe, Jason Matthews

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‘red sparrow’: film review.

'Hunger Games' vet Francis Lawrence reteams with star Jennifer Lawrence for 'Red Sparrow,' a film about Russian sex spies.

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Release date: Mar 02, 2018

Instead, Haythe and Lawrence hone in on a (presumably fictional) “Sparrow” program, in which young and attractive recruits of the Russian intelligence service, the SVR , go to school solely to be trained in the ways of seduction. Here, school’s in session with a stern Charlotte Rampling educating both men and women. “Every human being is a puzzle of need,” she tells them, insisting that knowing how to fill that unseen need will enable an operative to extract secrets and favors from foreign targets.

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Review: ‘Red Sparrow’ Has Spies, Lies and Dirty Dancing

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By Manohla Dargis

March 1, 2018

In the preposterously entertaining “Red Sparrow,” Jennifer Lawrence plays a Russian ballerina turned murderous spy. And why not?

Russian spies are apparently everywhere, and we seem to be in the middle of the Cold War 2.0. Anyone who has ever watched a ballet also knows how terrifyingly capable dancers are, with their steely strength, athleticism and discipline. Ms. Lawrence, best known as the teenage survivalist turned savior Katniss Everdeen in the “Hunger Games” series, has played rough before, so when her character in “Red Sparrow” brutally twists in a knife, it’s almost like old home week.

The story, too, is familiar but has notes and beats that have been refurbished and scrambled enough to hold and at times surprise you. Ms. Lawrence plays Dominika Egorova, a prima ballerina for the Bolshoi . Her face framed by bangs and a curtain of waist-skimming hair, Dominika rules the stage until a midperformance catastrophe cuts her down. With an ailing mother (Joely Richardson) and no money or options, she turns to her uncle, amusingly named Vanya (Matthias Schoenaerts, sliming up his sex appeal), a power monger in the foreign intelligence service who makes her an unsavory offer. She’s to serve as a honey pot for a man of interest, a job that of course goes wrong.

Anatomy of a Scene | ‘Red Sparrow’

Francis lawrence narrates a sequence from the film featuring jennifer lawrence and joel edgerton..

I’m Francis Lawrence, and I’m the director of “Red Sparrow.” So what you’re about to see is a scene between Jennifer Lawrence, playing Dominika Egorova, and Joel Edgerton’s character, Nate Nash. Jennifer’s character has been given a mission of trying to find a mole in the Russian government. And his last known contact is Nate Nash, an American CIA agent. “Dominika Egorova.” “You know my name?” We shot the film primarily in Budapest. And in creating this scene, the production designer, Maria Djurkovic, and I wanted a very realistic version of what a US embassy might be. I wanted in a way to do the sort of anti-party scene that you might find in a “Mission Impossible” movie or in a Bond movie. And those always tend to take place in operas and things like that. And it’s all very glamorous and people are in tuxedos and everybody looks really beautiful. And in my experience of seeing these kind of embassy events, they’re often quite boring. And so we found this great ‘60s university in Budapest, a medical university, that we used to lobby for the embassy and populated it with a bunch of background that we cast in Budapest but dressed them very — quite bland. Something to look out for in this scene is it’s one of the very few times, if not the only time, that Jen’s character smiles in the movie. And part of what we thought would be really interesting in this, because this is one of the first times we start to cement the romance between the two of them, is that he should charm her a bit. “Hey, I’d like to see you again.” “Why? Are we going to become friends?” “Is that what you want?” “I don’t have any.” And so for all the maneuvering the two of them are doing, she does get charmed by Joel and smiles in this.

The director Francis Lawrence (no relation to Ms. Lawrence) paints the movie red quickly and lavishly, daubing and washing that color onto sets, costumes and pouty lips. By the time he stages the first murder, the blood has begun to flow liberally, as if to underscore the movie’s title. The scene makes for a gruesome tableau, especially because of its intimacy (death often comes in close-up here), and because of the blood that splatters across Dominika, an augury of the lurid, messy violence to come. And come it does — in dribbles, gushes and an occasional shot to the head. “Red Sparrow” is based on the novel (the first in a trilogy) of the same title by Jason Matthews , a former C.I.A. officer who presumably knows something about the death-dealing world of spy versus spy.

The C.I.A. digs the novel and posted a review on its website , which suggests it would also approve of the movie’s politics (United States good, Russia bad); humorously, the agency did warn that the sex was explicit and “the Russian characters are not as nuanced as their U.S. counterparts.” (The violence onscreen is, as with most mainstream movies, blunter and more attentively staged and filmed than the sex, which is ho-hum decorous.) The Russians are about as movie-real as the American characters, which mostly just means that they’re types fleshed out with recognizably human detailing and all the polished professionalism — and the slight, detached irony — that comes when you hire smooth veterans like Charlotte Rampling, Jeremy Irons and Ciaran Hinds.

They’re welcome company, as is the rest of a cast that includes Joel Edgerton as Nate, a C.I.A. operative in Russia whose cover is blown soon after the movie opens. He’s working with a Russian intelligence insider called Marble, a meaty bone that the Americans are gnawing on. (Nate’s colleagues include a roundup of yammering, evidently spineless bosses in the States and a few colleagues in the field played by Sakina Jaffrey and Bill Camp with stern faces and wit.) While Nate takes care of American business, Dominika is forced deeper into the Russian intelligence apparatus, a two-track narrative that finds him fighting for credibility while she trains to become a Motherland prostitute.

Dominika’s part of a cohort that is decorously called sparrows, though she speaks angry truth to power when she accuses her uncle of sending her to “whore school.” Filled with pretty young things — all equally exploitable women and men — this is a suitably grim academy supervised by a severe matron who could be the daughter of Rosa Klebb , one of James Bond’s most memorable adversaries. A diminutive operative with a knife in her shoe, Klebb (an indelibly ferocious Lotte Lenya) appears in the Cold War-era film “ From Russia With Love .” Part of what’s both queasily provocative and instructive about “Red Sparrow” is that while Dominika might have been a Bond Girl in an earlier time (or, really, just in the next flick), here she’s allowed to go full-on Klebb.

Unlike in Bond movies, though, there are few self-aware winks in “Red Sparrow.” Working from Justin Haythe’s script, Mr. Lawrence folds in moments of levity (a delectably acid and funny Mary-Louise Parker stirs things up), but “Red Sparrow” mostly hews closer in grim vibe and viciousness to Bourne than to Bond. And, in classic fashion, Dominika endures the extremes of punishment — penance that centers on her pulverized, near-martyred body — that often come with heroic journeys. The rawness of the violence is startling, partly because despite “ Atomic Blonde ” and other female-driven movies, it’s still unusual to see a woman receive (and freely mete out) such barbarity.

That may not be everyone’s idea of progress, but it’s both appealing and crucial that “Red Sparrow” doesn’t soft sell Dominika. There’s an attractive, recognizable toughness to her as well as a febrile intensity born from need and circumstances, including the existential reality of being a woman in a man’s world. Dominika is sentimental (mostly about her mother), but she isn’t sentimentalized and never becomes the movie’s virgin or its whore, its femme fatale or good girl. She’s just the one carrying the fast-track story. And when Dominika becomes involved with Nate, it’s because, well, that’s how the roles were written. Ms. Lawrence and Mr. Edgerton never manage to spark, but it scarcely matters; their characters are too busy to seriously moon over each other.

As she does, Ms. Lawrence goes all in, seamlessly meeting the movie’s physical demands — whether she’s dancing onstage or crawling in blood — while turning Dominika into a character who grows more real with each unreal scene. She worked with Mr. Lawrence on three “Hunger Games” movies, and this shared history probably smoothed some of the story’s edges, and may also explain why “Red Sparrow” moves so fluidly even as the story nuttily kinks and bounces around locations.

It helps that Ms. Lawrence, like all great stars, can slip into a role as if sliding into another skin, unburdened by hesitation or self-doubt. Craft and charm are part of what she brings to this role, as well as a serviceable accent, but it’s her absolute ease and certainty that carry you through “Red Sparrow.” She was born to screen stardom, and it’s a blast to see where it’s taking her.

Red Sparrow Rated R for gruesome, graphic violence. Running time: 2 hours 19 minutes.

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DVD & Streaming

Red Sparrow

Drama , Mystery/Suspense

Content Caution

In Theaters

March 2, 2018
Jennifer Lawrence as Dominika Egorova; Joel Edgerton as Nate Nash; Jeremy Irons as General Korchnoi; Matthias Schoenaerts as Vanya Egorov; Thekla Reuten as Marta; Charlotte Rampling as the Matron; Joely Richardson as Nina Egorova

Home Release Date

May 22, 2018
Francis Lawrence

Distributor

Twentieth Century Fox

Movie Review

Dominika Egorova knows the joys of being a prima ballerina in Russia’s renowned Bolshoi Ballet. Of course, rising to that level of expertise and public recognition takes grueling work and fevered dedication.

And … it can all be gone in a moment.

After a terrible accident onstage, Dominika’s leg is horrifically broken, leaving her in a very difficult position. She will never dance again. So she and her sick mother, Nina, will have to leave Bolshoi’s housing, thus losing the medical care the prestigious ballet provides.

However, Dominika’s Uncle Vanya—who is well situated in the Russian intelligence service (the SVR)—assures her that all is not lost. She still has some gifts that can serve her well, he suggests. She is, after all, a great beauty. She’s also very bright. And, perhaps most importantly, a certain influential politician has lusted after her for some time now.

If Dominika will simply serve the State by meeting with this man in a, shall we say, intimate encounter, then the SVR might be able to extract some important information it needs from him. And, Uncle Vanya assures her, he will personally see to Nina’s needs thereafter.

Just one forgettable night in a bedroom in exchange for all the care this beloved family member requires. Is there really a choice here?

Of course, as is often the case with things in the world of spies, the SVR’s “simple” mission doesn’t go as planned. That fat-cat politician ends up dead. Now Uncle Vanya flatly states that Dominika has another choice to make.

There can be, of course, no witnesses to the murder. And since Dominika just happened to be nearly naked and in the politician’s abusive embrace when his blood was sprayed all over her, she’ll either have to join the SVR’s service full time or … die.

It’s an unfortunate outcome. But is there really a choice here?

And so Dominika joins the Red Sparrow project: a program that trains gifted operatives to extract secrets through emotional and sexual manipulation. It will require grueling work and fevered dedication.

But, Uncle Vanya declares with a simmering sinister smirk as he waves the young girl away, that’s nothing new for the great Dominika Egorova.

Positive Elements

Dominika cares dearly for her mother. Even at the height of her ballet career, she’s far more concerned with her ill mother’s daily needs than her own. In that self-sacrificial light, it’s easy to see how the unscrupulous Uncle Vanya is able to manipulate her.

Spiritual Elements

Sexual content.

The Red Sparrow program trains men and women in the ways of seduction. “Every human being is a puzzle of need,” the program’s demanding leader, known only as the Matron, tells her gathered students. She insists that knowing how to satisfy a target’s unseen carnal needs will enable a skilled operative to serve the needs of the State, too.

Accordingly, the movie depicts a great deal of unclothed flesh as well as various sexual activities in explicit detail, including multiple sex scenes. We see one man’s full-frontal nudity. Women are shown unclothed from various angles that include upper torso nudity and rear nudity. Trainees are forced to remove clothes and perform sex acts as part of their “curriculum.” We learn that one man is gay, and we see images of two women caressing and kissing. The Matron talks of various sex acts and mental manipulations. A film the Sparrow trainees watch shows a naked woman being bound with ropes.

Female characters wear low-cut tops. We see Dominika in a curve-accenting swimming suit. Several people kiss.

Violent Content

Sexuality and violence mingle here in deeply disturbing ways as well. Dominka is horrifically, graphically raped (clothing is forcibly removed) by a man who, in turn, is brutally murdered himself while he’s assaulting her. She fights off another attempted rape while she’s taking a shower—bludgeoning her attacker with a metal shower handle.

Dominika is also tortured in various ways. She’s doused with icy water while bound and naked in a freezing room. She’s battered repeatedly with blows to her body, limbs, face and head (leaving her flesh badly bruised and her pupils full of blood). We see a video of another man being tortured similarly and then executed with a bullet to the back of the head. Someone else gets killed by a headshot from a sniper’s rifle.

An American spy named Nate Nash is tortured as well by a specialist who strips layers of skin off his back and thighs with a special tool. It’s implied that the same “specialist” also worked on another woman who turned up dead. (We see her corpse in a tub full of bloody water, the walls spattered with gore and flesh.) A man is strangled with a wire garrote that slices bloodily into his neck.

A man jumps down with his full weight on a woman’s leg, snapping it and leaving the limb twisted at an ugly angle. Multiple fight scenes are brutal and battering. A woman gets hit by a speeding truck.

Crude or Profane Language

We hear more than 15 f-words, as well as a misuse of Jesus’ name and several uses of “a–” and “h—.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Dominika smokes cigarettes throughout the film, and several other characters smoke cigarettes and cigars, too. Various characters consume wine, whisky and brandy. During a tense, meeting, a senator’s aid is obviously drunk after trying to drink away her nervousness.

Other Negative Elements

Since this is a spy movie, it’s often difficult to tell who is being truthful and who is spewing lies.

Dominika vomits in the midst of her torture.

In 2014, actress Jennifer Lawrence was the victim of a hacker who stole her personal photos and spread nude pictures of her across the internet. “It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime. It is a sexual violation,” the actress subsequently told Vanity Fair .

In a recent 60 Minutes interview, however, Lawrence stated that she couldn’t pass up playing the female lead in Red Sparrow because the film—with its many nude sequences and moments of sexual violence—was actually something that she could use to “regain a sense of self.”

“I realized there’s a difference between consent and not. I showed up for the first day, and I did it, and I felt empowered,” she said. “I feel like something that was taken from me, I got back.”

The audience for this espionage flick—based on a novel written by former CIA operative Jason Matthews—may have a harder time, however, appreciating that expression of “empowerment.” After watching the central female character being emotionally abused, roughly manhandled, graphically raped and cruelly tortured, it’s difficult to walk away from this film feeling upbeat.

Red Sparrow does have its Hitchcockian-style moments. And Jennifer Lawrence works hard to inhabit her role and to draw our collective viewer sympathies. Still, this film is emotionally raw, sometimes gruesome, and scattered with wince-inducing interactions.

Oh, and of course, there are also those many fleshy visuals. “It’s my body, it’s my art, and it’s my choice. And if you don’t like [breasts], you should not go see Red Sparrow ,” Ms. Lawrence told 60 Minutes .

You should take her word for it.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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Red sparrow, common sense media reviewers.

Graphic violence, sex in dull Jennifer Lawrence thriller.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The movie's ultimate message centers on a woman be

Though the main character is a strong woman, she's

Extreme violence. Tons of guns and shooting; chara

Graphic sex scenes. Women, including the main char

Several uses of "f--k" plus "s--t," "p---y," "c--k

A secondary character is staggering drunk. Main ch

Positive Messages

The movie's ultimate message centers on a woman becoming a victim and then eventually taking revenge.

Positive Role Models

Though the main character is a strong woman, she's also forced into less-than-ideal circumstances by both bad luck and need. She takes control of several situations, but her ultimate solution is one of vengeance and violence.

Violence & Scariness

Extreme violence. Tons of guns and shooting; characters shot and killed. More than once, a man attempts to rape a woman but is stopped. Blood and gore. Beating and punching. Main female character punched and beaten. Gruesome dead bodies. A man is tortured, with his skin sliced off in strips. A woman receives vicious water torture. Man choked with a cord. Knife fight. Character hit and killed by a truck. Gruesome broken leg, gory operating sequence.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Graphic sex scenes. Women, including the main character, are shown topless; also full-frontal male nudity. Woman in skimpy black underwear. A woman's underwear is ripped off; naked thighs shown. Quick images of "porn" videos (kissing feet, tied up, etc.). Suggested sexual acts. Strong sexual innuendo and sex talk. Kissing. Disturbing kiss between a man and woman who are related by blood. A man cheats on his wife.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Several uses of "f--k" plus "s--t," "p---y," "c--k," "c--t," "pr--k," "bitch," "whore," "hell," "ass," "Jesus Christ," and "oh God."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

A secondary character is staggering drunk. Main characters smoke cigarettes, drink socially.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Red Sparrow is an overlong thriller starring The Hunger Games ' Jennifer Lawrence as a Russian intelligence officer who seduces enemies of the state. This one definitely isn't for kids or young teens: It's full of graphic, bloody violence, including attempted rape, killing, gruesome dead bodies, fighting and beating, and disturbing torture scenes. Sexual content is also mature, with graphic sex scenes, topless women, and full-frontal male nudity, as well as lots of sex talk and innuendo. Language isn't frequent but is quite strong, with uses of "f--k," "s--t," "p---y," and more. Most of the characters smoke and drink socially, and one is shown staggeringly drunk. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

Parents say (31)
Kids say (14)

Based on 31 parent reviews

Rape Sparrow

It has a rape scene in the first 30 mins, what's the story.

In RED SPARROW, Dominika Egorova ( Jennifer Lawrence ) is a star dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet. The company pays for the care for her ailing mother, Nina ( Joely Richardson ), and for their generous apartment, but when Dominika is injured in a gruesome onstage accident, those perks are suddenly in jeopardy. Dominika's uncle, Vanya Egorov ( Matthias Schoenaerts ), offers her a chance to become a Sparrow: a secret agent who preys on the desires of political targets. If she agrees, she can continue to care for her mother. So she's sent to a training facility led by a harsh matron ( Charlotte Rampling ) to learn the ways of seduction. She's then assigned to an American agent, Nate Nash ( Joel Edgerton ), who's been working with an unknown Russian mole. As things get more complicated and deadly, Nate and Dominika could be falling in love.

Is It Any Good?

Jennifer Lawrence re-teams with her Hunger Games director for this more grown-up attempt at a complex, sexy thriller, but the result is airless, mopey, and dull. Lawrence gets to try on a finely tuned Russian accent, as well as many gorgeous costume, makeup, and hairstyle changes, but although she tries her best, the character never really comes to life. The story is based on a novel by Jason Matthews, and it's structured adequately; Red Sparrow looks and sounds good, but it just fails to find a spark -- and it's far too chilly to be sexy.

It also never generates much suspense; it moves sluggishly and gets more and more tiresome as it trudges through its 139 loooong minutes. Director Francis Lawrence brought this same quality to his massively popular Hunger Games movies -- he helmed the final three in the series of four -- and their brooding quality appealed to teens. But this attempt an an edgier thriller still feels juvenile as it dabbles in excessive amounts of sex and bloodshed; its attempt at stoicism just feels like boredom. Try as it may to unveil twists and surprises, Red Sparrow remains routine -- it only manages to emphasize the "cold" in Cold War.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Red Sparrow 's violence . Does it seem intended to thrill or to shock? What's the impact of media violence on kids?

How is sex portrayed in the movie? Is it based on trust? Power? Something else? Parents, talk to your own kids regarding sex and relationships.

Is Dominika a role model ? Is she controlled by others, or does she make her own decisions? Are her actions positive or negative?

How are drinking and smoking shown? Do they look cool or glamorous? Are there consequences? Why is that important?

Movie Details

In theaters : March 2, 2018
On DVD or streaming : May 22, 2018
Cast : Jennifer Lawrence , Joel Edgerton , Mary-Louise Parker
Director : Francis Lawrence
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Twentieth Century Fox
Genre : Thriller
Run time : 139 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : strong violence, torture, sexual content, language and some graphic nudity
Last updated : September 3, 2023

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Screen Rant

Red sparrow review: jennifer lawrence does david fincher lite, anchored by jennifer lawrence's performance, red sparrow is a slow-burn spy/seductress thriller that's shiny on the surface, yet lacking in depth..

Adapted from the book by former CIA operative Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow is a modern espionage flick that reunites Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence with her The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Mockingjay - Part 1 & 2 director Francis Lawrence. Matthew sold the movie rights to his intriguing source material before it had even been published, with Jennifer Lawrence's mother! director Darren Aronofsky and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo duo David Fincher and Rooney Mara among those who circled the project during pre-production. While the caliber of talent that expressed interest in adapting Red Sparrow is a testament to the narrative richness of Matthew's novel, the final film version is more an exercise in style over substance. Anchored by Jennifer Lawrence's performance, Red Sparrow is a slow-burn spy/seductress thriller that's shiny on the surface, yet lacking in depth.

Jennifer Lawrence stars in Red Sparrow as Dominika Egorova, a celebrated Russian ballerina whose career is cut tragically short when she suffers a terrible injury during a performance. Facing an uncertain future and determined to continue providing care for her sickly mother Nina (Joely Richardson), Dominika is manipulated by her shady uncle Ivan Dimitrevich Egorov (Matthias Schoenaerts) - the First Deputy Director of the SVR - into performing a dubious task... one that leads to a person being murdered, with Dominika the only witness to the Russian government's secret crime.

Realizing that she has no real choice in the matter, Dominika is then forced by her uncle into attending Sparrow School: a Russian intelligence program that trains young people to use their minds and bodies as weapons of seduction. When it turns out that Dominika has a talent for this dangerous line of work, she is recruited by the government to carry out a top priority mission: to make contact with and seduce a CIA operative named Nathaniel Nash (Joel Edgerton), in order to manipulate him into revealing the identity of his informant within the Russian secret service. However, in this line of work, everyone has secrets and Dominika comes to realize that she must always stay one step ahead, if she wants to make it out of this operation alive.

Like Matthew's original novel, Red Sparrow combines a comparatively realistic portrayal of modern intelligence agency procedures and techniques (informed by Matthew's real life experience working for the CIA) with a pulpier spy/femme fatale narrative full of dramatic twists and enigmatic characters who may or may not have ulterior agendas. Francis Lawrence and screenwriter Justin Haythe ( Revolutionary Road , A Cure for Wellness ) similarly carryover the Red Sparrow book's shifts in point of view to the big screen, frequently cutting back and forth between scenes with Dominika and conversations among top-ranking members of either the CIA or SVR. The film by and large succeeds in creating tension and suspense through this filmmaking approach, in particular when it comes to juxtaposing Dominika's storyline with the plot thread involving Nathaniel and his own spy games.

While Red Sparrow further manages to streamline Matthew's dense source material into more of a cinematic three-act narrative, it ends up sacrificing much of its substance in the process. The film only skims the surface when it comes to exploring the political implications of its story (specifically, the state of relations between the former Soviet Union and the U.S.), as well as the questions that it raises about how sexual attraction and gender influence the power dynamics between people of different social ranking. Red Sparrow delves fairly deep into the power struggle between Dominkia and her uncle Ivan, but her relationships with the movie's other players - like Nathaniel, her mother, and especially the Sparrow School Matron (Charlotte Rampling) - come off feeling half-baked in the end and fail to leave much of an emotional impact.

Jennifer Lawrence, for her part, delivers another fine performance as the "Red Sparrow" herself, making it easier to accept how the character applies her determination and discipline as a dancer to becoming an effective secret agent and seductress, instead. Red Sparrow is really the former Katniss Everdeen's show more than anyone else's, though the rest of the supporting cast do a good job with the thin material they are handed. Further lending the film an air of prestige are actors like Oscar-winner Jeremy Irons and character actor Ciarán Hinds (who, yes, are technically Justice League costars), as do Richardson, Rampling, and Mary-Louise Parker in their own supporting roles. As classy as that ensemble reads on paper though, only Schoenaerts gets a meaty role to dig into as Dominika's sinister relative.

Its shortcomings in story and character development aside though, Red Sparrow is a handsome movie purely from an aesthetic perspective. Reuniting with his Hunger Games cinematographer Jo Willems, Francis Lawrence draws from a cold yet striking color palette to bring the film's world of spies, covert operatives, and assassins to life, creating a richly austere sense of atmosphere in the process. Trish Summerville's equally chilly, yet lovely costumes are sometimes a bit too reminiscent of the outfits that she designed for Catching Fire 's dystopian setting, but Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy production designer Maria Djurkovic aptly captures the feel of a Cold War thriller throwback with her contributions here. Keeping that in mind: Red Sparrow does look and feel a bit like "David Fincher-lite" overall, leaving one to wonder what Fincher and Mara would have made of the project, had they signed on instead of the Lawrences (all the more so when you consider the thematic similarities between Red Sparrow and Fincher's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo especially).

Fox originally had Red Sparrow scheduled to open in theaters last November, but the film's delay was a smart move. The film is a perfectly solid dramatic thriller for adults, but wouldn't have been an awards season contender and might have gotten lost in the shuffle, had it been forced to compete alongside the stronger genre movies that came out last fall. Red Sparrow isn't one of Jennifer Lawrence's best starring vehicles, but it's a good rebound for the Oscar-winner after her films likes Joy , Passengers , and even the divisive mother! failed to leave much of an impression on the pop culture zeitgeist. The movie isn't a must-see in theaters, but those who are intrigued by the film's premise and/or have enjoyed Francis Lawrence's previous non- Hunger Games genre features (a la Constantine , I Am Legend ) may want to give "Jennifer Lawrence's Black Widow movie" a shot.

Red Sparrow is now playing in U.S. theaters nationwide. It is 139 minutes long and is rated R for strong violence, torture, sexual content, language and some graphic nudity.

Let us know what you thought of the film in the comments section!

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Red Sparrow (2018)

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Red Sparrow Review: A Violent, Sexually Charged Spy Thriller

Red Sparrow earns its R-rating. It is easily the most graphic, sexually charged film we've seen from Jennifer Lawrence.

Jennifer Lawrence takes more than a few lumps in the violent spy thriller, Red Sparrow . The actress delivers her most sexually charged performance yet, while getting beaten to a pulp throughout. It is her fourth collaboration with Director Francis Lawrence ( I Am Legend ), who helmed the last three Hunger Games movies . Red Sparrow has a circuitous plot that runs somewhat cold in the middle. The downbeats are snapped by interspersed scenes of raw brutality. This back and forth swing keeps the narrative interesting enough to the big reveal.

Jennifer Lawrence stars as Dominika Egorova, a prima ballerina for the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. A tragic turn of events leads her into the clutches of her spymaster uncle, Ivan (Matthias Schoenarts). He exploits her beauty and natural seductiveness. Sending her to a top secret spy school, where she is trained by an uncompromising teacher (Charlotte Rampling). Dominika is thrust into the world of high stakes espionage. She is assigned to seduce a disgraced CIA agent (Joel Edgerton), who is the sole trusted handler of a long hidden Russian mole.

Red Sparrow juggles several subplots. The film wants to keep you guessing about the characters true intentions. Who is betraying whom in a twisted mix of sex and violence. It works initially, then gets bogged down by the details. At two hours and twenty minutes, the film does drag; but there really isn't anything to cut. The minutia is necessary to establish character and plot development. The screenplay by Justin Haythe attempts to capture the nuances of the source novel. He goes thick in the weed at points, thus the screen adaptation falters. It isn't easy bringing dense novels to the big screen. Red Sparrow needed a tighter script to shore up the layers of complexity.

Jennifer Lawrence does not hold back in her gritty performance . Dominika is an unwilling pawn in a vicious game. The character faces nonstop brutality. I won't go into details, but her treatment in Red Sparrow is pretty heinous. The scope of Dominika's arc can be summarized as gaining power over her abusers. That's the best part of Red Sparrow and well done by Lawrence. The rub is that she doesn't have chemistry with co-star Joel Edgerton. He does well by himself as an operative, but they don't mesh well together. The pair has multiple raw scenes that don't quite pay off.

Francis Lawrence never fails to bring artistry to his films. He has a tremendous talent for setting the mood of his story. Red Sparrow sells the look of murky espionage. The film has a bleakness that flows. Even when Dominika is dolled up for seduction, there is darkness to the production design and cinematography. Francis Lawrence successfully depicts an unwilling participant. His protagonist is gorgeous, surrounded by opulence, but just an instrument for purpose. This is also well done when Dominika is being trained. The school and its participants are drab, colorless, entirely soul crushing. Lawrence then hits you like a sledgehammer with graphic bloodshed. It is raw and uncompromising, providing a much needed jolt at times. Jennifer Lawrence is wise for continuing to work for this director.

From Twentieth Century Fox, Red Sparrow is a better than average foray into the spy genre . It runs long, but captivates with a strong lead performance and shocking violence. The film earns its hard R-rating. Red Sparrow is easily the most graphic performance we've seen from Jennifer Lawrence . She continues to push her boundaries as an actress.

Red Sparrow (United States, 2018)

Red Sparrow ’s electric prologue cross-cuts between two seemingly disparate storylines that won’t intersect until nearly an hour into the proceedings. Prima ballerina Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) is performing in front of a packed house for the Bolshoi Ballet when the unthinkable happens – an ugly accident that leaves her dancing dreams as twisted and broken as her leg. Meanwhile, in Gorky Park, CIA operative Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton) is meeting with his informant when the police arrive. A chase ensues and, although Nate escapes capture by getting across the barrier at the entrance to the U.S. Embassy, the agency censures him and suspends him from field operations.

By far the most interesting aspect of Red Sparrow is the game of seduction and counter-seduction that goes on between Dominika and Nate. Jennifer Lawrence and Joel Edgerton share sufficient chemistry for the relationship to work and Lawrence’s performance, which is by turns inscrutable, tough, and vulnerable, keeps us uncertain how sincere Dominika is at any moment.

It’s evident that Jennifer Lawrence has reached a high level of comfort with director Francis Lawrence, who worked with her on three of the four Hunger Games movies (the only one he didn’t helm was the first one). In addition to performing her first nude scene, Lawrence is depicted being brutally tortured in a sequence that skirts the edge of NC-17 violence. The camera is as relentless as Dominika’s questioners, refusing to look away and, unlike with (for example) equally graphic scenes in the Lethal Weapon and Mission: Impossible series, there’s no satisfying rescue in the offing. Throughout Red Sparrow , Dominika spends a lot of time applying makeup to cover up cuts and bruises. The film presents her not as a victim, however, but as someone with the inner strength and fortitude to overcome and bend circumstances to her liking.

Red Sparrow provides an effective contrast to Charlize Theron’s Atomic Blonde . The latter, based on a graphic novel, was more interested in visual razzle-dazzle than intricate plotting. This movie, based on the book written by ex-CIA operative Jason Matthews, is more hard-core and down-to-earth. Although no less visceral than Atomic Blonde , it’s better grounded and the characters feel less like comic book creations than real people. The underlying uncertainty gives the movie a hook and an edge and there are enough mandatory twists to keep viewers unsure about where the resolution is headed. On balance, Red Sparrow is a reasonable choice for those who don’t mind a fair amount of graphic sex and violence mixed in with the spying, back-stabbing, and double-dealing expected from this genre.

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Red Sparrow Parent Guide

Not quiet as gentle as a feather..

Release date March 2, 2018

Dominika (Jennifer Lawrence), is a former ballerina recruited into the Sparrow program, where she trains to become a Russian Secret Service agent. She becomes quite accomplished as a weapon until an American CIA agent (Joel Egerton) threatens to clip her wings.

Run Time: 141 minutes

Official Movie Site

Red Sparrow Rating & Content Info

Why is Red Sparrow rated R? Red Sparrow is rated R by the MPAA for strong violence, torture, sexual content, language and some graphic nudity.

Page last updated May 22, 2018

News About "Red Sparrow"

Jennifer Lawrence stars as Dominika Egorova, a woman who is becomes a Russian special agent after her career as a ballerina comes to an abrupt end. Her physical strength and beauty make her a potent weapon, especially when the subjects of her assignments are male. Of course, she meets her match in Nathaniel Nash (Joel Egerton), a CIA operative. Love, violence, trust and betrayal are all part of the plot as she tries to determine where she should place her alliances. From the Studio: Dominika Egorova is many things. A devoted daughter determined to protect her mother at all costs. A prima ballerina whose ferocity has pushed her body and mind to the absolute limit. A master of seductive and manipulative combat. When she suffers a career-ending injury, Dominika and her mother are facing a bleak and uncertain future. That is why she finds herself manipulated into becoming the newest recruit for Sparrow School, a secret intelligence service that trains exceptional young people like her to use their bodies and minds as weapons. After enduring the perverse and sadistic training process, she emerges as the most dangerous Sparrow the program has ever produced. Dominika must now reconcile the person she was with the power she now commands, with her own life and everyone she cares about at risk, including an American CIA agent who tries to convince her he is the only person she can trust. - Twentieth Century Fox

Cast and Crew

Red Sparrow is directed by Francis Lawrence and stars Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Mary-Louise Parker.

The most recent home video release of Red Sparrow movie is May 22, 2018. Here are some details…

Red Sparrow releases to home video (Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy) with the following extras: - A New Cold War: Origination and Adaptation - Agents Provocateurs: The Ensemble Cast - Tradecraft: Visual Authenticity - Heart of the Tempest: On Location - Welcome to Sparrow School: Ballet and Stunts - A Puzzle of Need: Post-Production - Director Commentary by Francis Lawrence

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Red Sparrow: Movie Review

Red Sparrow released in September 2017, starring Jennifer Lawrence , and directed by Francis Lawrence, is a noirish espionage-thriller about a Russian ballerina forced to become a seductress for Russian Intelligence.

Red Sparrow: Title

The title is reference to the protagonist, ‘Reds’ being a common slang term for the Russians and ‘Sparrow’, a term for an agent using seduction to entrap enemy sources.

(For more on titles, see How to Choose a Title For Your Novel )

Red Sparrow: Logline

After a ballerina witnesses an assassination, she is given two choices: death or become a state-sponsored seductress. Tasked with manipulating an American spy, she attempts to play both sides in order to gain revenge for her degradation.

(For how to write a logline, see The Killogator Logline Formula )

Red Sparrow: Plot Summary

Warning: My plot summaries contain spoilers. Major spoilers are blacked out like this [blackout]secret[/blackout]. To view them, just select/highlight them.

It’s the modern-day. In Moscow, Dominika Egorova is a ballerina for the Bolshoi ballet. After a career-ending injury, she loses her position and is in a desperate situation. Her uncle, who works in Russian intelligence, offers to help her if she does a job for him: seducing an opposition politician and then switching his phone so they can monitor him. But when Dominika gets the politician alone, an assassin kills him. Dominika’s uncle had lied to her.

General Korchnoi, who’s high up in Russian Intelligence, insists they eliminate Dominika as a witness, but her uncle suggests another possibility. He’s impressed by how Dominika seduced the politician and offers her a position in Russian intelligence doing similar work. With no real choice, Dominika accepts.

Meanwhile, a CIA operative in Moscow, Nate Nash, meets with a mole in Russian intelligence, codenamed ‘Marble’. When Russian cops stumble on the meeting, Nash has to blow his cover to enable Marble to escape. Nate returns to the USA in disgrace. Marble refuses to work with any other CIA agents, though, and so the CIA sends Nate to Budapest to regain contact with him.

In Russia, Dominika trains as a ‘Sparrow’. The training involves abusive and degrading treatment, which Dominika resists. Despite her stubbornness, her uncle decides to use her as an agent. He sends her to Budapest to seduce Nate, hoping he will tell her the identity of Marble.

The Mission

In Budapest, Dominika shares an apartment with another sparrow, Marta. Marta, without orders, has seduced the chief of staff of a US Senator. Dominika tells her uncle about the unauthorised plan and he executes Marta for her transgression.

Dominika contacts Nate and immediately admits she is a Russian agent and that her mission is to discover Marble’s identity. She offers to become a double agent for the CIA.

Under CIA control, Dominika meets with the American Senator’s chief of staff, receives the intelligence she’s selling, and switches it for fake information. The CIA close in to arrest their traitor, but she’s run over by a van before they can apprehend her.

Suspecting that Dominika betrayed the operation to the CIA, Russian intelligence torture her. She refuses to admit anything and eventually convinces her uncle that the fact that her own side has treated her so brutally will make her completely credible to Nate.

Dominika’s uncle allows her to return to Budapest. There, she tells Nate that she wants to defect to the USA. He agrees to help her.

Later, [blackout] Dominika finds another Russian operative trying to beat the identity of Marble out of Nate. She pretends to join in, but then attacks and kills the Russian. She and Nate are both badly injured in the fight and end up in hospital. At the hospital, General Korchnoi reveals he is Marble and tells Dominika to unmask him. This triumphant achievement will allow her to take his place as the CIA’s mole.[/blackout]

Dominika [blackout] contacts the head of Russian intelligence and reveals the identity of Marble. The Americans then arrange a spy-swop: Dominika for Marble. However, rather than naming General Korchnoi, Dominika frames her uncle as Marble in revenge for the terrible ordeal he has put her through. During the handover, a Russian sniper kills the uncle.[/blackout]

Russian intelligence [blackout] celebrates Dominika as a hero . Later, at home, she receives a phone call, implying that she’s still in contact with Nate.[/blackout]

(For more on summarising stories, see How to Write a Novel Synopsis )

Red Sparrow: Analysis

Red Sparrow has a Mission plot (see Spy Novel Plots ).

The ‘Mission’ Plot The Protagonist: Is given a mission to carry out by their Mentor. Will be opposed by the Antagonist as they try to complete the mission. Makes a plan to complete the Mission. Trains and gathers resources for the Mission. Involves one or more Allies in their Mission (Optionally, there is a romance sub-plot with one of the Allies). Attempts to carry out the Mission, dealing with further Allies and Enemies as they meet them. Is betrayed by an Ally or the Mentor (optionally). Narrowly avoids capture by the Antagonist (or is captured and escapes). Has a final confrontation with the Antagonist and completes (or fails to complete) the Mission.

This archetypal plot is complicated in that it’s not clear who the Antagonists are. Dominika ‘s uncle, Russian Intelligence and the Americans all seem to be the Antagonists at times, as Dominika tries to survive their machinations.

Red Sparrow – Black Widow – Nikita

A Russian ballerina trained at a brutal spy school to become a seductress and spy? What does that remind me of? Yes, it’s the same back story as Marvel’s Black Widow.

Red Sparrow is also reminiscent of the classic French movie Nikita ( and its loose remake Anna) with a spy agency forcing a troubled young woman to become a seductress/assassin.

However, Red Sparrow is not a Black Widow or Atomic Blonde style action movie, with spectacular stunts, but a wannabe slow-burn Le Carré style spy-movie. It’s a hell of a lot darker and more ‘realistic’ than the superhero-tinged Black Widow. Some of the violence is brutal, and the sex scenes are unpleasant, too. If you watch Red Sparrow to see Jennifer Lawrence stripping off, it will disappoint you.

And although Red Sparrow is comparable to Nikita in its noir edge, the comparison is not flattering: Nikita is a far superior movie.

Red Sparrow: The Plot and the Ending Explained

This section contains massive spoilers, obviously.

To be honest, the ending is all a bit of a deus ex machina and the plot doesn’t actually make a lot of sense.

Dominika’s plot goal (or at least the goal imposed on her by Russian Intelligence) was to make Nate fall in love with her, so he’d tell her the identity of the mole. At the same time, Nate’s plot goal was to make Dominika fall in love with him so she’d defect.

The deus ex machina occurs when the mole, Marble, reveals himself to Dominika out of nowhere and for no discernable reason. That means the conflict at the heart of the plot between Dominika and Nate’s goals is simply unresolved.

Instead of turning the real Marble in though, Dominika tells the head of Russian intelligence that her uncle is Marble – the evidence being one tumbler with Nate’s fingerprints (which she placed in her uncle’s apartment), a bank account in her uncle’s name (which she opened) and the fake CIA intelligence (which she obtained, not him). This is not very much evidence at all.

Also, Dominika collected those items early in the story, so must have been planning to frame her uncle before she discovered who Marble was, so the whole plot thread with Nate is basically irrelevant.

Luckily, the head of Russian intelligence is an idiot and so falls for Dominika’s transparent attempt to frame her uncle and everyone goes home happy… except for her uncle, who’s dead.

It never becomes clear if either, or both, of Nate and Dominika were genuine or they were both just attempting to manipulate each other. However, the final scene implies they are at the least still in contact.

Red Sparrow: My Verdict

Not sure I quite bought the plot, but the ride is entertaining enough.

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COMMENTS

Red Sparrow movie review & film summary (2018)
Red Sparrow. Jennifer Lawrence is tied to a chair, beaten and tortured. She is the victim of rape and attempted rape. She is forced to strip naked in private and in public. She is slashed, stabbed and has a gun put to her head. Ostensibly, such graphic ordeals are intended to demonstrate the physical and psychological fortitude of her character ...
Red Sparrow
Feb 22, 2019. A poorly made spy film, Red Sparrow is incredibly boring and monotonous. When a Russian ballet dancer is severely injured her uncle recruits her to become a covert agent who ...
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Red Sparrow is a dense, thoroughly adult espionage tale, the likes of which are rarely seen at the multiplex. Full Review | Mar 20, 2020 J. R. Jones Chicago Reader
Film Review: 'Red Sparrow'
The movie is a thriller, but it's also a kind of sexualized nightmare, and that's the boldness of it. ... Film Review: 'Red Sparrow' Reviewed at Regal E-Walk, New York, Feb. 15, 2018. MPAA ...
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Jennifer Lawrence and Joel Edgerton in Red Sparrow. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo. The twists aren't quite as daring as the film-makers seem to believe (pre-screening, all critics received a ...
Red Sparrow (2018)
Red Sparrow: Directed by Francis Lawrence. With Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Charlotte Rampling. 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.
'Red Sparrow' Review: Jennifer Lawrence Is a Badass Russian Spy
February 16, 2018 12:00 pm. "Red Sparrow". An icy Russian espionage tale that would have looked right at home in Cold War-era thrillers of the '50s and '60s, " Red Sparrow " explores the ...
Red Sparrow Review: An Absolutely Brutal Spy Thriller
Read Matt Goldberg's Red Sparrow review; Francis Lawrence's movie stars Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, and Charlotte Rampling.
Red Sparrow
Dominika Egorova is many things. A devoted daughter determined to protect her mother at all costs. A prima ballerina whose ferocity has pushed her body and mind to the absolute limit. A master of seductive and manipulative combat. When she suffers a career-ending injury, Dominika and her mother are facing a bleak and uncertain future. That is why she finds herself manipulated into becoming the ...
'Red Sparrow' Review
Movies; Movie Reviews 'Red Sparrow': Film Review 'Hunger Games' vet Francis Lawrence reteams with star Jennifer Lawrence for 'Red Sparrow,' a film about Russian sex spies. By John DeFore.
Review: 'Red Sparrow' Has Spies, Lies and Dirty Dancing
Red Sparrow. NYT Critic's Pick. Directed by Francis Lawrence. Drama, Mystery, Thriller. R. 2h 20m. By Manohla Dargis. March 1, 2018. In the preposterously entertaining "Red Sparrow ...
Red Sparrow
Movie Review. Dominika Egorova knows the joys of being a prima ballerina in Russia's renowned Bolshoi Ballet. Of course, rising to that level of expertise and public recognition takes grueling work and fevered dedication. ... Red Sparrow does have its Hitchcockian-style moments. And Jennifer Lawrence works hard to inhabit her role and to draw ...
Red Sparrow Movie Review
The movie's ultimate message centers on a woman be. Positive Role Models. Though the main character is a strong woman, she's. Violence & Scariness. Extreme violence. Tons of guns and shooting; chara. Sex, Romance & Nudity. Graphic sex scenes. Women, including the main char.
Red Sparrow Movie Review
Its shortcomings in story and character development aside though, Red Sparrow is a handsome movie purely from an aesthetic perspective. Reuniting with his Hunger Games cinematographer Jo Willems, Francis Lawrence draws from a cold yet striking color palette to bring the film's world of spies, covert operatives, and assassins to life, creating a richly austere sense of atmosphere in the process.
Red Sparrow (2018)
9/10. Incredible but uncomfortable thriller. masonsaul 20 December 2018. Red Sparrow is an incredible thriller that's unpredictable, extremely well made and tense. Jennifer Lawrence gives an incredible lead performance with Joel Edgerton and Matthias Schoenaerts giving great performances.
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 ...
Red Sparrow Review: A Violent, Sexually Charged Spy Thriller
Red Sparrow earns its R-rating. It is easily the most graphic, sexually charged film we've seen from Jennifer Lawrence. Jennifer Lawrence takes more than a few lumps in the violent spy thriller ...
Jennifer Lawrence's 'Red Sparrow': Movie review roundup
Lawrence, in this movie, shows you what true screen stardom is all about. She cues each scene to a different mood, leaving the audience in a dangling state of discovery. We're on her side, but ...
Red Sparrow
A movie review by James Berardinelli. Red Sparrow is a deliciously perverse, unflinchingly violent thriller - a modern-day espionage tale that breaks with the tradition of making the spy business the purview of suave and debonair characters. With a story that argues that the Cold War may not have thawed much in the intelligence world ...
Red Sparrow Parents Guide
Why is Red Sparrow rated R? Red Sparrow is rated R by the MPAA for strong violence, torture, sexual content, language and some graphic nudity.. Violence: - Frequent non-graphic violence. - Explicit violence. - Violent acts shown in realistic detail with blood and tissue damage. - Frequent portrayals of gun, weapons, and hand-to-hand violence with blood and detail.
Red Sparrow (2018)
English. Thriller, Mystery. User Score: 6.4. Critic Score: 49. Not Seen. Prima ballerina Dominika Egorova faces a bleak and uncertain future after she suffers an injury that ends her career. She soon turns to Sparrow School, a secret intelligence service that trains exceptional young people to use their minds and bodies as weapons.
Red Sparrow: Movie Review
Red Sparrow released in September 2017, starring Jennifer Lawrence, and directed by Francis Lawrence, is a noirish espionage-thriller about a Russian ballerina forced to become a seductress for Russian Intelligence.. Red Sparrow: Title. The title is reference to the protagonist, 'Reds' being a common slang term for the Russians and 'Sparrow', a term for an agent using seduction to ...

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Film Review: ‘Red Sparrow’

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Reviewed at Regal E-Walk, New York, Feb. 15, 2018. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 139 MIN.

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