Red Sparrow

Red Sparrow is Jennifer Lawrence's newest film about how a ballerina becomes a Russian undercover agent. Dominika Egorova (Lawrence) has a great career as a ballerina, until a freak accident leaves her unable to dance again. Her uncle takes this opportunity to recruit Dominika to work for the Russian government. He knows she is struggling to work and take care of her sick mother at the same time. Dominika finds herself in Sparrow School; which she terms "whore school." She is taught to use her body to get what she wants and to trick men into giving up answers.

Her first mission is to get close to a CIA agent from the United States that has been working undercover with an unidentified Russian man. She is tasked with getting the name of the Russian that has been revealing hidden information to the United States.

While I did enjoy this movie, it is definitely a man's movie. It has everything from torture to sex, and from politics to the importance of family. Dominika would do anything to help her mother live a carefree life, even if it means working for her corrupt uncle.

I did find some scenes hard to watch simply because I hate gore and I was afraid of what I was going to see. The torture scenes were a bit much for me, but they did not show a lot of gore (which I appreciated). The camera angles did not show the gore, but we would see pieces of skin after it had happened, or we would see the blood. I can handle that.

The movie is very long as well. At just under two and a half hours, I found myself wondering how the movie was going to end. There was a lot of back and forth where we weren't sure which side Dominika was working for: the Russians or the USA. After watching her go back to the USA for the third time, I was thinking ok this has to be it, but I was wrong. The end of the movie, however, was brilliant. I did not see it coming. Dominika, this sweet ballerina, became a mastermind that tricked everyone and no one thought it possible.

Jennifer Lawrence did a good job in such a different role from her norm, but the movie was long, and at times hard to watch. Overall, if I was rating this out of 10, I'd give it a 6.5-7. Not my favorite, but not horrible either.