There is much to unpack with Francis Lawrence’s (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, I Am Legend) ambitious spy thriller Red Sparrow, a 2018 early summer release that mainly flew under the radar domestically ($46 million) but excelled internationally ($150 million). Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle) is, as of 2018, probably the actress who can command the most money per movie. If not number one, she’s pretty darn close. But that doesn’t mean that every movie she does will earn her an Oscar nomination or gross $100 million. And she’s not that choosy. Since bursting onto the scene with 2010’s Winter’s Bone, the first of her four Oscar nominations and one of the best breakout performances in the last 25 years, Lawrence has starred in more than 15 movies before the release of Red Sparrow. And while she can excel at portraying various characters, a Russian spy will not go down as one of her Top 10 performances of all time. It’s not that she was as bad as Dominika Egorova, a Russian ballet dancer who is, more or less, forced into the life of being an undercover operative after a terrible leg injury ruins her dancing career and leaves her needing money to pay for her mother’s medical expenses.
Category Archives: Charlotte Rampling
45 Years (2015)
I drank the Kool-Aid on this one. I discussed who would receive the five Best Actress Academy Award nominations in many of my previous reviews. I kept including Charlotte Rampling (Melancholia, The Eye of the Storm) as one of the five based on everything I had been reading. I regret including her name, but, in my defense, January 29th was the very first chance I had to see 45 Years. I saw it a day later, and I am uncertain what I just saw. I love heavy dramas and movies about broken relationships. I also like slow, methodical movies if they are building towards something. The pieces were in place for 45 Years, but this movie ultimately didn’t do it for me. I realize I am in the minority when I give it a less-than-average review. Nevertheless, it earned a stellar 96% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. I don’t like using this excuse (mainly because I’m no spring chicken), but I may have been too young to truly appreciate this movie. I want to think that I am not. I have a deep appreciation for movies about aging in general or movies about couples dealing with life-altering experiences. I adore the film Away From Here. I love About Schmidt. Cocoon, Driving Miss Daisy, and Amour are also movies that I admire. And while it is a different type of aging movie, I believe The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is one of the best love stories ever told on screen is one of the best 100 movies ever made. In each of the five movies mentioned above, at least one actor or actress (and in many cases more than one) received a nomination for an acting award. Each was deserving. I have nothing against Rampling, and I went into this movie thinking I would see one of the three or four best performances by a leading actress all year, but her performance failed to meet my expectations. Now that I have seen all of the contenders, I believe Carey Mulligan (Suffragette) deserved the final nomination for Best Actress this year.
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Deception (2008)
Continuing to get my Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine, Incendiary) fix, I caught the directorial debut of Marcel Langenegger, 2008’s Deception. While captivating initially with its slow, almost methodical building of suspense, this movie ultimately tries to outsmart itself by offering twist after twist after twist. By the time the movie crawled to its conclusion, we either figured out the twists, or they were so far-fetched and ridiculous that we didn’t care about them.