Red Sparrow Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Red Sparrow Blu-ray Movie Review

. . .or, what happens when Black Swan meets La Femme Nikita.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 21, 2018

Is it a requirement that films featuring psychologically roiled ballerinas have titles with a color and a bird in them? Natalie Portman danced her way to an Academy Award in Black Swan a few years ago, and now comes Red Sparrow, though it’s probably a good thing that star Jennifer Lawrence already has her own Oscar trophy since it’s unlikely this film will garner her any kind of award season recognition. That’s not to say Lawrence is anything less than effective (despite a somewhat clunky “Russian” accent), but Red Sparrow’s tale of a legendary ballet star matriculating into counterintelligence may simply be too ludicrous for even Lawrence’s significant talents to completely sell. The film has a really interesting opening sequence which quick cuts between two unfolding stories. One involves prima ballerina Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence), who is shown caring for her ailing mother before taking the stage with Moscow’s iconic Bolshoi Ballet. While obviously concerned about her apparently very sick mother, Dominka also has to navigate the swirling waters of modern day Russia’s political system, suffering through a pre-performance photo op with some kind of head honcho type named Dimitri Ustinov (Kristof Konrad), who isn’t shy about getting a little handsy with the dancing star during the process. Dominika does ultimately take the stage, but she’s soon hideously injured when her pas de deux partner apparently misjudges the distance of a leap and comes down squarely on one of Dominika’s calves, completely fracturing her leg in what (with the help of a little CGI) looks like a career ending injury. Intercut with these developments are scenes of Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), a CIA operative working in Moscow who receives a coded transmission with a message to get something accomplished in Gorky Park that evening. Some kind of handoff does in fact occur there, but there are police in attendance and when things go a bit haywire, Nash has to beat a hasty exit, though it seems like the identity of his Russian contact may have been compromised in the process.

For a film that clocks in at well over two hours, there are some curious deficiencies in terms of exposition, motivation and just basic logic running through the story. Even the sociopolitical context of the film is a bit odd, seeming a lot more like the old Soviet Union than contemporary Russia (though some might argue that there’s not that much difference, at least when it comes to spying, the subtext of the story). One of the first motivational elisions comes early in the film, in the wake of Dominika’s devastating leg injury which has in fact ended her career. Her smarmy uncle Ivan Vladimirovich Egorov (Matthias Schoenaerts), a Russian intelligence operative, drops by the apartment housing Dominika and her mother Nina Egorova (Joely Richardson), one which (along with Nina's doctor visits) has been provided by the Bolshoi. Ivan kind of half threateningly reminds Dominika that the “free ride” in terms of rent and medical care for her mother will soon be coming to an end, and she might want to consider an alternate “career choice”. Already the film is veering precariously close to ridiculousness, but in a kind of interesting segue Ivan also provides Dominika with proof that her little “accident” didn’t happen by chance. And it’s here that the film takes the first of several motivational (or at least reaction level) quantum leaps by having Dominika viciously attack those she feels were responsible for her injury. It suggests an almost feral quality to the character that has not been developed and which in fact isn’t even supported by subsequent events. It seems designed directly to offer a quick snapshot of Dominika’s more shall we say intense qualities while also serving as a too convenient way to get her further under the thumb of Ivan.

Two more elisions occur in quick succession, both tied directly to Dominika. The first question that occurred to me after her wreaking havoc on the people she considered responsible for her injury is “did no one report her to the police?”, a question which may at least be gotten around by just assuming that Uncle Ivan handled everything in that regard. But then Ivan enlists Dominika to seduce Dimitri Ustinov, and that scene also ends in considerable carnage (after some frankly kind of shocking sexual content that seems to put the lie to Dominika’s supposed feral qualities in a showdown), which again led me to wonder why none of the bystanders thought to finger Dominika as having been with the scion earlier. (Again, maybe good ol’ Uncle Ivan handled things.) One way or the other, Dominika now finds herself in even more precarious straits than before, at which point she is more or less forced to undergo training as an undercover operative at a so-called Sparrow Academy. (There evidently was a Soviet sponsored school teaching women to seduce their way to intelligence information, which may raise some eyebrows of those following certain news stories these days.)

There are several vignettes at the training academy, as Dominika is mentored by a no nonsense woman known only as Matron (Charlotte Rampling, looking like a living poster straight out of the Soviet Era). Of course Dominika turns out to be a natural for this line of work (who woulda thought?), and soon enough she’s predictably assigned to “work” on Nash since the Russian intelligence service wants to know who the mysterious contact Nash met with at Gorky Park is. (Anyone wondering who the “mole” in the Russian government is need only peruse the cast list and make a few pretty obvious assumptions.) There's a bit of psychological cat and mouse shenanigans that accrue as the story progresses, but it's all frequently overly labored and simply increasingly unbelievable, despite the game efforts of a committed cast.

The film does better in some brief but disturbing interstitial elements where the more basic action adventure aspects of the story are permitted short bursts of energy. Some of these scenes again seem to willfully bifurcate what we're supposed to think and/or feel about Dominika, but they at least give the film a bit of power that its otherwise talky bits never attain. One of the pull quotes Fox trumpets in its press materials accompanying this release touts how "empowering" Red Sparrow is, but if it indeed is, it's some of the strangest empowerment I've personally seen.

Note: My colleague Brian Orndorf was evidently considerably less pleased with the film when he reviewed it during its theatrical exhibition. You can read Brian's thoughts here.

Red Sparrow Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Red Sparrow is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Shot with a variety of Arri products and finished at a 4K DI (all according to the IMDb), Red Sparrow is consistently sharp and well detailed throughout its high definition presentation, despite typical "thriller" grading that casts a lot of sequences in cool blues and grays, as well as several interior scenes that are bathed in more of a dirty yellowish tint. The film benefits from some nice European location work, and detail on some of the historical architecture that crops up at least in backgrounds is often quite impressive. Director Francis Lawrence and cinematographer Jo Willems favor close-ups for Jennifer Lawrence in particular, and detail in these shots is typically excellent. Some midrange shots can occasionally look just a tad soft (including some in the CIA briefing rooms, for whatever reason). The palette is somewhat subdued at times (perhaps to evoke a quasi-Soviet dowdiness), but there are pops of vivid hues in "little" elements like the bright red lipstick Dominika wears at one point. As tends to be the case with Fox Blu-ray releases, there are no issues with image instability or compression artifacts.

Red Sparrow Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Red Sparrow's DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix provides consistent surround activity, even if some of it isn't as boisterous as in the opening scenes where some of the orchestral underpinnings of the ballet sequences provides a really nice bed of sonic immersion. Urban environments tend to provide good ambient crowd noises, but even some of the interior scenes have good placement of individual effects, including nicely directional dialogue. Fidelity is fine throughout, and while tending to offer bursts of energy in fits and starts, dynamic range is also wide.

Red Sparrow Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• A New Cold War: Origination and Adaptation (1080p; 12:42) is a pretty standard EPK that has some decent behind the scenes footage and brief interviews interspersed with scenes from the film.


• Agents Provocateurs: The Ensemble Cast (1080p; 15:21) follows the EPK template again, but does feature Lawrence and several others in brief snippets discussing the characters.


• Tradecraft: Visual Authenticity (1080p; 13:28) was for my money one of the more interesting supplements offered on this disc, focusing on locations and production design, though once again the EPK format of clip, interview, behind the scenes footage gets a bit repetitive.


• Heart of the Tempest: Locations (1080p; 10:56) was one of the other better supplements on the disc, with production designer Maria Djurkovic offering some insight into how she and Francis Lawrence went about designing things and aiming for consistency despite a wide variety of locations.


• Welcome to Sparrow School: Ballets and Stunts (1080p; 12:12) has some interesting footage of Jennifer Lawrence learning her moves and information on how they merged real ballerina Isabella Boylston's dancing with Jennifer's for the final film.


• A Puzzle of Need: Post-Production (1080p; 14:08) gets into aspects like editing and scoring.


• Director Commentary by Francis Lawrence


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 12:20) feature Optional Commentary from Director Francis Lawrence

Red Sparrow Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's the core of an exciting and maybe even visceral story buried in Red Sparrow, but this film is simply too overstuffed for its own good (readers who have seen the film may have noticed I didn't even get into characters played by Jeremy Irons and Mary Louise Parker). The cast all offer good "movie star" performances, but the underlying plot conceit is kind of silly, and some of the violence and sexual aspects may actually shock some unprepared audience members. Fox has provided a disc with outstanding technical merits and some decent supplements for those considering a purchase.