Some fun to be had in intricate spy thriller
If you decide to go see Black Bag, here’s a word of advice: see a matinee after a good night’s sleep and a large cup of coffee. You’ll need to be fully alert and engaged to follow this twisty, talky spy thriller. Whether or not you take that as a recommendation depends on your tolerance for convoluted but highly stylized, aesthetically pleasing espionage tales.
Black Bag is director Steven Soderbergh’s second collaboration with writer David Koepp this year, after January’s horror film Presence. If the duo keeps up this pace, perhaps they’ll give us a romantic comedy by early summer, especially since Black Bag has an element of romance. This picture, though, leans light on the comedic charm and heavy on the dramatic edge.
Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett (Tár) star as George and Kathryn, a seemingly happily married couple who also both happen to be British intelligence officers. The film’s title comes from the lingo they use when they can’t tell each other about their classified work projects. Whereas a wife with a more prosaic career might share with her husband that she has a meeting with her boss that afternoon, Kathryn simply says “Black Bag” when George asks about her work travel, and George knows not to ask anything further.
Such secrecy is vital to George and Kathryn’s careers, but how does it affect their marriage? That’s one of the questions the picture explores, and Fassbender and Blanchett are well-matched as a couple who play their cards close to the vest as they constantly reassess trust in their spouse. Such a dynamic becomes even more pronounced when George is tasked with rooting out a mole in the agency, and Kathryn is on the short list of suspects.
Watching Fassbender, Blanchett, and their cadre of co-stars, including former James Bond Pierce Brosnan as the agency head, and Marisa Abela (Back to Black) and Regé-Jean Page (Bridgerton) as two other colleagues under suspicion, is great fun, even if our heads spin a bit trying to keep up with the plot’s twists and turns. If you’re a fan of the Paramount+ show The Agency, then Black Bag was made for you: Fassbender essentially plays the same cool, inscrutable agent as he does in that equally elaborate spy series.
At times the picture feels like a locked-room mystery, with two bookended dinner party scenes featuring the story’s major players undergoing tense cat-and-mouse psychological tricks intended to reveal secrets and lies. But just as often the script also follows a classic John le Carré Tinker Tale Soldier Spy playbook, with its narrative of agency leaks and world-ending technology falling into the wrong hands. And as an added bonus, the picture evokes a sort of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf complex look at the nature of marriage.
If all these competing angles feel a little dizzying, they’re at least exciting, and Soderbergh and Koepp seem to revel at keeping us guessing, while not spoon-feeding us basic plot explication. Depending how tired you are, that’s either a plus or a minus. But props to the filmmakers for not underestimating our intelligence, and delivering a film that sizzles with energy and delights us with surprises.
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Black Bag opens in theaters today.
