Red Sparrow takes spy thriller to a Rated X level

Movie Title:    
        Red Sparrow

Grade:  C-

Rating: R, 
2 hours 19 minutes

In a Nutshell:   This sex filled spy thriller features psychological manipulation and LOTS of undressing and naked bodies.  Even Jennifer Lawrence shows us full frontal nudity. Why isn’t this movie Rated X?

It feels more like a tale of prostitution than super spy.  It's like saying Fifty Shades of Grey is a romantic love story.

Tips for parents: 

• Full frontal male and female nudity.
• Two completely naked people having sex.
• Bloody beatings and violent deaths
• A woman undresses down to her underwear.  Another gets completely naked.
• Homosexuality
• Attempted rape
• Crude language, profanity, F-bombs
• Someone gets run over by a car.  Yuck.
• Some family-friendly spy movies without all of the graphic violence and nudity that’s found in Red Sparrow are Spy Kids and Agent Cody Banks.
• If you’re intrigued by psychological manipulation, but want your teens to be able to watch something that’s not Rated R, check out the interesting social experiment in the TV show “The Push” found on Netflix right now.

                                           

Uplifting theme: 

• Sacrifice for a higher purpose
• Extreme patriotism

Things I liked:

• The talented cast includes Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Irons, Joel Edgerton, Charlotte Rampling, and Mary-Louise Parker.
• To enforce the title of the movie and the Russian setting, the color red plays a dominant role, from the movie poster, to the clothing that people wear to the bloody scenes.  
• Jennifer Lawrence trained in ballet for 4 months, although Isabella Boylston was her lovely body double who did the more difficult choreography.       
• Directed by Francis Lawrence, this movie is his first film since he directed The Hunger Games movies.  Clearly, Jennifer Lawrence trusts him completely. She would have to in order to strip and do the things she does in this movie.  She's in fantastic shape, by the way.
• You don't know who is telling the truth, which makes it intriguing and suspenseful.  
• The movie is based on the book by Jason Matthews who was a former CIA operative.  Cool. 
• The opening sequence is a bit confusing, but mesmerizing.            

Things I didn’t like:

• The telling is uneven.
• Way too much graphic nudity and sex.  There are so many awkward scenes.
• Women are used as tools in a one-dimensional portrayal.
• It's very dark and violent, which must have rubbed off on Jennifer Lawrence who, apparently, got into a bar fight in Budapest when she was filming the movie.
• Jennifer Lawrence has basically the same expression on her face the entire movie.  It's hard to see her character arc.
• The movie feels long and tiring.
• Disgusting torture.

  Interesting lines:

• “There’s no such thing as luck.” – Scumbag guy
• “Your body belongs to the State.  Since your birth, the State nourished it.  Now the State asks for something in return.” – Matron (Charlotte Rampling)
• “In my experience, the proud are the first to fall.” – Matron
• 
  

Funny lines:
*  "Why are all the Russian women so sexy?  All the men look like toads." - Stephanie Boucher (Mary-Louise Parker)

  

       

                                              @trinaboice