‘Red Sparrow’: Seductive and brutal

MANILA, Philippines —It has been more than two years since the 18th highest-grossing film of all time, "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2" (2015) came into conclusion.

But Jennifer Lawrence, one of Hollywood’s highest paid leading actresses, never halted. Instead, she took on other challenging roles such as her iconic portrayal of Marvel villain Mystique in the "X-Men" trilogy, and sci-fi film "Passengers," where she starred alongside Chris Patt. 

This year, JLaw, as Lawrence is also fondly called, stars in "Red Sparrow," a thriller movie that surprisingly boasts of extreme perverseness and violence. Produced by 20th Century Fox and is based on a best-selling novel by former CIA operative Jason Mathews, the movie presented a different kind of JLaw, who somehow, took her acting to a whole new maturing level. Sure, she has always been good with seduction-themed movies, but "Red Sparrow" might have pushed the boundaries a little more.

Lawrence birthed the character of Dominika Egorova, a Russian prima ballerina caught in one of the darkest times during the Cold War. Before everything around her collapsed, dancing was everything to her. It was her dream and the only way she knew to support her ailing mother. Soon after, an accident leaves her severely injured, where she finds her world in disarray, unable to dance and unable to provide financial support. Her uncle Vanya (Matthias Schoenaerts) came to rescue her, giving her another shot in life, but with a deadly price to pay.

It is no secret that Dominika’s uncle holds a very influential position in a secretive Russian agency for covert intelligence operations - one of the reasons why her family has always avoided making close ties with him. When her manipulative uncle asked her to seduce a high-ranking government official in order to get information, this led to a horrific murder, which later gave Dominika no choice but to attend what she later describes as a “whore school.”

The "school" is a highly guarded elite school for young men and women (with mostly having military background) who were chosen by the government to be trained for espionage. The school, however, was more than just producing assassins and spies. It specializes in creating "Red Sparrows." These are highly trained soldiers in behavioral and psychological combat, a required skill to perform different lewd tasks in order to gather information from whoever the government identifies as a threat to national security.

After months of training — that includes having different sexual encounters to strengthen every soldier’s mind; to make them believe that their body belongs to the state — Dominika had proven herself and to her superiors that she is ready. Graduating ahead of everyone else, she was sent to Budapest with a mission to target CIA spy Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton) with different arrays of sexual wiles, in order to lure him into revealing the identity of a Russian mole who keeps leaking intel to the Americans.

Nate, on the other hand, is an experienced spy and he knew from the get-go that Dominika was on a special mission. What follows is very much a whirlwind of romance and treachery between the two. Determined to get away from her uncle as far as she can, Dominika devised a plan to give away her true identity to Nate. This led him to think that he could get her into opening up and become a double agent for CIA.

Is Lawrence's nude movie line-up a thing in Hollywood?

It is commercially understandable why Lawrence would be typecast as the heroine who gets beaten up. There is something interesting about the way she portrays these roles, but in one of her interviews, she talked about the path her career might have taken.

According to her, a strong female character is currently the most in-demand role for actresses like her as this could pave the way for a life changing career. Although she knows that it is inevitable not to get roles that are generally seen to be exploitative and somehow paints the idea that women are less in strength. So why does she keep entertaining these roles?

Hollywood films are getting more complex; attempting to delve deeper into storylines that reflect significant social and political factors that often resonate to a wider audience. This is why the emerging micro-genre of film centered around new, more progressive femme fatales, is a stand out.

Elements such as lust, drugs, and violence are incorporated to create relevance and salability. These typical character line-ups, however, are by no means a reflection of Lawrence’s talent and versatility as an actress. With four Oscar nominations, having won one of them, this is a testament as to how far she has gone in terms of acting.

Regardless if she is getting a lot of sexual-themed movies, everyone could agree how she draws real and powerful emotions from them that sometimes, leaves you mesmerized. It is quite a tradition now for producers to always consider her for action-packed heroine roles. There is just something about seeing her head-butted, and then thrown into a dresser that remains hard to process, even if it is technically part of what makes her such a beauty to behold. She still looks gorgeous even with all the cuts and bruises.

One of the most attention-grabbing responses to "Red Sparrow" was the comparison to another heroine movie, "Atomic Blonde." Both films star A-list actresses as blonde-banged spies trained in combat and seduction; but while "Atomic Blonde" focuses more on the James Bond-esque fight scenes, "Red Sparrow" conjures a heavier element of social realities and deception that were perfectly staged in a gritty Cold War timeline.

Now that Red Sparrow has hit local cinemas, what will audiences make of it? It’s a tough call for most people, even for die-hard JLaw fans. The movie is low on action, choosing to focus more on talk and a lot of sex, but there is something about the uncensored nastiness and brutality that lingers, and it is quite refreshing to see how the characters are creating mayhem with multiple twists in the end.