Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 59 minutes
Director: Luc Besson
Quick Impressions:
I was torn between so many movies this week. I’ve heard Emma Thompson is snarky and hilarious in Late Night. Though I’m not big on horror, sheer love of Octavia Spencer and Mark Hamill tempted me to try Ma or Child’s Play. I seriously almost decided on Ron Howard’s Pavarotti documentary (because who doesn’t love Pavarotti)? But that had an inconvenient showtime. So I went with Anna, a movie whose engaging theatrical trailer seemed to come out of nowhere a couple of months ago.
My husband and I almost always love Luc Besson movies. (In fact, not almost. Always.) His crazy sense of humor and frenetic pacing really work for us. And the trailer for this could have been called A Film by Luc Besson: the Movie. Even the trailer leaves absolutely no doubt who directed Anna. When it comes to leading ladies, Besson certainly has a type. And when it comes to the premise, it’s pretty much always some quasi-magical young woman fighting everyone, isn’t it? (It is.)
Honestly, watching Anna made me imagine that Luc Besson saw last year’s Jennifer Lawrence vehicle Red Sparrow and said to himself, “Hmm…this could be funnier.”
Red Sparrow is not a bad movie (especially if you like hallways), but this one has an incredibly similar plot, yet it’s ten thousand times more fun to watch. Where Red Sparrow is gritty and demoralizing, Anna is escapist and entertaining. Because so many awful things happen in Red Sparrow, I’ve never had a particular desire to see that movie again, but I can easily imagine myself re-watching Anna any number of times just for pleasure. Its superficiality is part of what makes it so palatable. We know that Anna suffers horrors and commits atrocities, sure, but there’s no need to dwell on that. It’s far more fun to focus on dazzling fight choreography, offbeat humor, and more time jumps than the second act of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. (Seriously, every five seconds we get, “five years later,” “three months earlier,” “one year later,” “three years earlier.” My husband likened it to a rambling story being told by a narrator who constantly reveals new information to make sure we truly understand the full significance of every new event. He pictured Vizzini from The Princess Bride haltingly narrating the whole thing, which somehow makes it even better.)
Now, if you’re looking for radical originality or seeking a masterpiece from a filmmaker at the height of his powers, then this might not be the movie for you. It is pretty hard to see even a small portion of Anna and not begin making comparisons to A) Red Sparrow and B) Every other film by Luc Besson himself. But so what?
Anna is a fun movie with less violence than I expected and shockingly little gratuitous sex and nudity. I’m not saying it doesn’t deserve its R-rating. There’s a little too much lethal fork stabbing to make it family friendly fare, but by Besson’s own standards, it is not as violent as it could be, yet the action we do see is thrilling and inventively choreographed.
The Good:
Helen Mirren is so awesome as a senior KGB agent that it’s worth seeing Anna just for her performance. Not until I got home did I remember that Mirren actually is Russian on her father’s side. (I mean that her father himself was from Russia, and his father was a Russian diplomat. Her birth name was Mironoff.) I noticed a couple of comments on ads for the movie comparing her to Edna Mode from The Incredibles, and I won’t deny that cosmetically, the character design is eerily similar. But we all know that Edna Mode is the best character in The Incredibles, so I don’t consider that a particular problem.
Mirren’s character is bizarrely likeable and made a career in the KGB seem oddly desirable. Before this, I have never in my life, thought, “Hey, you know what could provide a great life for a woman? Joining the KGB!” Yet suddenly it seemed like the greatest job. Almost continuously throughout the movie, I kept thinking things like, “You know, if you were an atheist living in Soviet Russia under Communism, becoming a spy master could provide a great life for a capable woman of high intelligence and uncanny survival skills.” Helen Mirren is just a great actress. That’s got to be what it is. Watching her onscreen once upon a time also opened my eyes to the unparalleled virtues of Queen Elizabeth II. So Helen Mirren clearly has magical powers of persuasion. She gives by far the best performance in the movie as the most interesting and fully realized character.
What fascinates me about Mirren’s performance is its nuance. She’s playing a serious character (albeit one with a sense of humor) within what is practically a comedy masquerading as a serious spy story. I love the way she is able to highlight the comedy without sacrificing the integrity of the character.
Watching this movie, I get the impression that Besson is very much aware of how familiar the storyline is to us. I think our familiarity with the plot is the entire point, and that’s where the comedy comes into play. He cannot be unaware that he has made a movie very similar to Red Sparrow. He seems to be inviting us along on a familiar story of espionage and double-crossing to highlight some of the ridiculous elements usually found in these movies. This isn’t a parody of a spy movie exactly, but it’s a fantasy of one, all executed in a strangely fun-loving way.
Newcomer Sasha Luss acquits herself well in the lead role. She’s not asked to show tremendous depth. The movie works better when she doesn’t. Cillian Murphy is extremely fun to watch as the manipulative, witty CIA agent. (Of course, I love him. I think he’s fun to watch in anything.) Luke Evans makes the male KGB agent surprisingly sympathetic. Another wonderful presence in the film is Lera Abova as Anna’s long-suffering girlfriend Maude. (One great surprise of the movie is that when Maude is introduced is such an intensely sexualized way, gratuitous male-gazey sex scenes between her character and Anna don’t follow. My husband remarked on how much he admired that choice–intellectually.) Maude could be a simply disposable character, but Abova makes us truly care about her. In fact, Anna’s inability to contribute anything to the relationship becomes increasingly frustrating. After Mirren’s Olga, Maude is my favorite character in the film. For some reason, I was also quite taken with Sasha Petrov as Anna’s terrible, crazy, abusive boyfriend. I found that section of the story surprisingly charming.
Best Action Sequence:
Ordinarily I’m not big on action, but I truly enjoyed the fight scenes in this movie. Best is when Anna goes into the cafe to dispatch her first target. I actually saw huge portions of this scene in its trailer and online ads. I also saw some people complain in comments on those ads that Anna’s fighting skills were unrealistic. No kidding. That’s like calling Jackie Chan’s fight scenes in movies unrealistic. Of course they’re unrealistic. Real fights are not planned out with the elegance of a dance by professional choreographers. Even if you’re as nimble and physically gifted as Jackie Chan, you would have no reason to expect that everyone you encounter would be willing (let alone prepared) to “dance” with you. Honestly watching Anna fight provides a visceral rush of delight because essentially she’s dancing with guns, knives, acrobats, and (extremely bloody) flatware. That’s just fun to watch, though, yes, unless the training the KGB gives is largely in dance (which is not impossible given the typical excellence/elegance of Russian gymnastics) this is not the way people actually fight in real life. Anna’s flight near the end of the movie is pretty great, too. None of it is realistic. Unless you are a sadist/sociopath watching brutal murders as they would happen in real life is not any fun.
Best Scene:
I loved the scene in which Anna goes violently crazy and leaves a photo shoot. It’s actually one of the weaker scenes in the film because it pushes the fantasy a bit far. (Obviously, in real life, a model would be fired for that, though surely her representation could find a way to blame cocaine and save her career.) But I truly enjoyed the parallel this film draws between the exploitative nature of the KGB and the similar tactics of the modeling industry. Anna has no control and is given little respect. She’s often treated as a possession, an asset, whether she’s shooting (a gun) or being shot (by cameras).
I also love the scene in which Anna’s girlfriend joyously welcomes her home. Lera Abova is just wonderful here. Her exuberance gives us real insight into Anna’s pain. Watching, I thought, “This woman can’t even pretend to be happy with this amazing, dedicated, beautiful, loving girlfriend? Obviously, she is dead inside.” (Besson’s take on espionage might not be entirely realistic, but he does convince us that French girlfriends are the best girlfriends in the world!)
Best Scene Visually:
Perhaps my favorite section of this film is Anna’s relationship with her abusive addict boyfriend. I love the disorienting way we are introduced to this character. We see her face, and we think, “Is this like Red Sparrow? Is this some kind of horrible assignment? Some kind of espionage related rape? Some crime that turns people into Batman?” But no, it’s just Saturday night at home. I love the way this entire portion of the story looks. Even her groceries tell us so much. We can feel her unhappiness so palpably. I can’t discuss it in detail without spoilers, but I was surprised by how charming and intellectually engaging I found this part of the story.
The Negatives:
If you don’t like other Luc Besson movies, then you’re not going to like this one, either. And if you think you’ve seen this story before, you’re right. It’s very similar to all kinds of other movies, and its plot is eerily aligned with Red Sparrow. There’s one big difference, though. This movie is way more fun. (Red Sparrow is no fun. It isn’t trying to be fun. If you see Red Sparrow and think it’s fun, then I recommend therapy.) I also think this movie is more focused on the audience’s experience than Anna’s.
Despite all of the twisty-turny time jumps, most of the “twists” are pretty easy to call. They never feel very shocking. (In fact, I predicted the ending fairly early). They do, however, feel gratifying. Actually, that was how I managed to call the ending so soon. I thought, “What ending would make me happiest? What would make me come away feeling the most satisfied?” Et voilà!
Besson clearly likes girls with power better than anyone else. He seems to want to endear himself to audiences by saying, “See, I’m all about girl power!” I’m not sure I believe that loving girls with power does mean that you’re all about girl power, but I do believe that he wants us to believe it. He also wants his audience to enjoy the movie, and he makes the experience very pleasant for us, so I won’t complain. He even provides plenty of food for thought since he seems to be making a spy movie that’s partially about the experience of watching spy movies.
I’m also glad that what I feared about Cillian Murphy’s character did not come to pass. After the movie, my husband said, “That was so clever. He was playing the seductress.” I replied, “I’m so relieved because for a split second I thought he was a figment of her imagination or something and this very predictable movie was about to go completely off the rails.” Honestly, after that moment of terror, I was glad that Anna did not surprise me.
Overall:
I’m glad I chose Anna because it was exactly what I expected, a Luc Besson movie. Cillian Murphy and Luke Evans give good performances, and Helen Mirren is simply marvelous in a film that cares less about being original than about entertaining the audience. This movie did not change my life, but I can imagine watching it again many, many times in the future.
