Who’s coming over for dinner, you ask? Oh, just a group of British spies who might have something to hide about a plan that jeopardizes the lives of thousands of innocent people. The hosts? A married spy couple. But they are no Mr. and Mrs. Smith. No, these lovers are far more sophisticated in how they entangle their amorous bond and high-stakes jobs. Pragmatic to a fault in a socially awkward manner, George (Michael Fassbender) and his seductively icy wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) hold court over their guests during an early scene in Steven Soderbergh’s deliciously sleek spy puzzle of the film “Black Bag.”
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One of them has been lying, and George is bent on finding out who and precisely about what. The attendees include brash womanizer Freddie (Tom Burke) and his much younger girlfriend, fiercely astute Clarissa (Marisa Abela), plus handsome Colonel James (Regé-Jean Page) and the staff psychologist Zoe (Naomie Harris). The evening, amped by an insidious game, quickly devolves from a casual affair to the first instance where the cracks begin to show.
Screenwriter David Koepp, who also wrote Soderbergh’s agoraphobic thriller “Kimi” and his recent supernatural outing “Presence” (both refreshing entries in an ever-surprising filmography), gets to flex both his dialogue crafting prowess here—every line feels loaded with meaning while often landing with hilariously pointed sparks—and his ability to engineer a mystery with several moving parts that intertwine geopolitical concerns with the most coveted resource for the men and women in this intelligence organization: loyalty.
A 93-minute rendezvous with adult audiences in mind, “Black Bag” deploys surveillance technology, jet setting across the world’s capitals, and the constant threat of material danger for everyone involved. Yet, for the most part, the drama unfolds through snappily edited scenes of stylishly suited characters walking in pristine offices and luxuriously decorated homes. An air of elegance permeates nearly every interaction. And though there are no car chases nor shootouts, the main attraction here is to witness how the mind games unravel one revelation after the next, thanks to the human emotion acting as the agent of chaos. That’s what Koepp and Soderbergh, through these seemingly impenetrable groups of intensely trained people, seek to dissect: even as the fate of the world hangs in the balance, people are still people, susceptible to passions, urges, and resentments like the rest of us.
As Clarissa, a fantastically cheeky Abela, questions how a relationship can possibly work when the titular concept of a “black bag”— confidential information that must not be shared with anyone, not even with one’s spouse—can so easily be used to lie in one’s personal life, it’s a sort of carte blanche for infidelity and, in turn, a source of mind-corroding distrust for the other person involved, the young spy thinks. But George and Kathryn have cracked the impossible code. Even when deceit enters the picture, they do it for the other person’s benefit. Their trust in each other is visceral, it may in fact serve as the erotic motor in their marriage. Knowing that the other is just as willing to kill for the sake of their marriage to endure is a violence-laced display of true romance.
Fassbender’s rigidly stoic performance leads the stellar ensemble, whose screen time is maximized by Koepp’s precisely written, memorable quips. Late in the unofficial investigation to find who might be trying to set them up, George interrogates every one of the other players using a polygraph. The sequence, where Soderbergh frames their close-up in unconventional angles, allows for individual confrontations, expanding the viewer’s somewhat limited understanding of the characters. By the time the session wraps, the truth about who is withholding information remains hidden from view, but their human shortcomings are unveiled. Rounding out the resplendent cast is Pierce Brosnan as Stieglitz, the group’s superior, interestingly playing a role in opposition to his 007 legacy.
Taut yet thoroughly laced with levity, “Black Bag” plays like the filmic equivalent of a skillfully executed espionage mission in how tight and exact it feels. Soderbergh swiftly gets the job done and delivers satisfactory results in entertainment value and an intimacy-focused spin on a well-trodden subgenre. It seems Koepp is his latest, most effective secret weapon. [A-]
“Black Bag” opens March 14 via Focus Features.
