FILM REVIEW: Steven Soderbergh spikes spy thriller "Black Bag" with slick intrigue
Stephen Soderbergh’s latest directorial effort is a sexy spy caper about relationships. Black Bag follows married couple George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett), both spies working in London’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).
George is tasked with sniffing out a traitor within the agency walls, and invites the list of potential Judases to his lush London townhouse for a dinner party. Kathryn slips into an exquisite camel gown and liberally spritzes herself with perfume as George labours away in the kitchen, slicing garlic with careful finesse, as would a Goodfella turned culinary school graduate. He spikes the chana masala with truth serum, and once his guests fall under the effects of the tainted legume, he beckons them to play a catty game: Make a New Year‘s-style resolution for the person sitting to your right. Your mouth stays agape with giddy shock as juicy personal revelations are brought to light. You learn very little about the guests before you’re thrust to the keyhole like a naughty schoolboy, peeping, as they reveal their deepest darkest secrets.
The script was penned by David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Snake Eyes), who arrived at the idea for the film whilst writing the script for Mission: Impossible. He picked the brain of a real CIA agent, who said it was impossible to sustain a relationship in his profession because it was too easy to have an affair and cover your tracks. This intel informed the script: Koepp’s agents betray each other at work and in the bedroom, using “Black bag” as an unimpeachable slang word for confidential information.
Koepp found himself more drawn to the personal life of an agent rather than the work itself, a position that gives the film a fresh, exciting angle, that Soderbergh describes as ‘’An espionage version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”. Flirtatious young surveillance specialist Clarissa (Marisa Abela) undresses George with her eyes, as her fellow NCSC professionals indulge themselves in torrid affairs. Fassbender and Blanchett have such electric chemistry, you expect every shared scene to end with them tearing each other’s clothes off. Sex is never shown directly, only alluded to; Black Bag is polished and restrained, cultivating a sumptuous, alluring mystique.
The characters simmer with tension and slickly tread around a chasm of classified information, probing you to question their honesty and intentions. The rich interpersonal drama that gives the film the feeling of a stage play is supplemented with a diligent peppering of indecipherable high-tech mumbo jumbo typical of the genre. Scenes centred around the NCSC operations, though thrilling and engaging, act almost as a necessary stepping stone to the examination of what you care most about - the delicious dramas of the central couples.
The script is tight, witty and silky smooth, with the film rounding out to an impeccably paced 94 minutes. Soderbergh is one of the few working directors committed to making quality mid-budget films for adults (Let Them All Talk, Kimi), catering to the consumer with an appetite for intelligent explorations of personhood. He dished out seconds this time around.
Black Bag is a film for the lovers of the psychosexual, the unabashed gaspers who ache for a thrill.
4 out of 5 stars
