Now available on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital is the thriller Red Sparrow.
Red Sparrow stars Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Jeremy Irons, Joely Richardson and Matthias Schoenaerts, and Mary-Louise Parker.
Dominika (Lawrence) is a talented Russian ballet dancer. She’s gifted in what she does. Sadly her career comes to a crashing halt when she suffers a serious (and horrific to watch) injury. Her ballet career is now over with.
Dominika finds herself with no where to live (she was living in housing provided by the ballet company), and no more medical care needed for her sick mother.
In comes her Uncle Vanya. He works with the Russian Secret Service as a high ranking official. He woos Dominika with promises of a better life working as a secret agent (aka “Sparrow”). Dominika is intrigued and agrees to go to Sparrow School.
In Sparrow School, Dominika and the other students are trailed in how to extract secrets from others using their bodies and just about anything else they can think of. The students are essentially trained to be sexy, emotionless, “robots” in a way. Their bodies belong to Russian. They are no longer their own persons.
Dominika’s first assignment is to seek out a CIA agent named Nate Nash (Edgerton) and try and find out the identity of a “mole” working inside the Russian intelligence.
Dominika and Nash appear to be falling for one another – or is it all just an act to gather information from one another (another words, is it real or all just a game?).
Is Dominika really just “property” that belongs to the agency she works for, or is the real Dominika still lurking around inside of her. Is she just playing Nash, or does she really have feelings for him? And will she continue to work as a Sparrow after her assignment is completed? To find out you need to pick up or rent Red Sparrow. Look for it where ever movies are sold.
To get me into the spirit of the film, I was sent the Red Vodka Box from Shaker & Spoon and 20th Century Fox. The special box was created for the film and featured interesting cocktails created by prominent mixologists. The cocktail recipes (and ingredients to make them) included:
- The Crimson Beet-rayal
- Fallen Ballerina
- Dirty Little Secret
I LOVE the names of the cocktails and how perfectly the fit the film.
Shaker & Spoon is a monthly subscription box that helps subscribers create delicious drinks and cocktails.
According to the website;
Every box is built around one spirit and showcases various styles of cocktail-making. You’ll shake, stir, muddle, and more!
Each box comes with 5 cards: The welcome card gives an overview. The 3 recipe cards guide you through mixing and garnishing the cocktails, step by step. And the glossary explains any unfamiliar bartending terms.
Just follow our instructions, and you’ll create bar-quality drinks for yourself and anyone you’d like to show off to!
Sadly, I came down with the stomach flu, so I wasn’t able to enjoy these cocktails. That is OK because I plan on having my brother and sister-in-law over soon and these cocktails will be a lot of fun to make and sample together.
I am especially looking forward to trying the Crimson Beet-rayal cocktail. I LOVE beets and I never knew you could use them to make cocktails. Judging by the recipe, it looks like it tastes really good.
You can see the videos for the other drinks, as well as other recipes, here.
Shaker & Spoon gives you everything you need to re-create the recipes in your home including fresh lemons, rosemary sprigs, bitters (some I’ve never heard of before, like Wormwood Bitters), beets, olives and even the cocktail “sticks” to insert into the olives to decorate the drink.
They DON’T include the alcohol. In order for them to ship the alcohol it would cost more for shipping and there would be less ingredients in the box. In addition, the box would have to be signed for by someone 21 years or older, which might not be easy if adults are not normally home when the package is to be delivered.
The recipes I have the ingredients to make requires Vodka. I normally have a bottle (or two) of Smirnoff Vodka in my home (just in case we get visitors or host a party). So making these recipes would be easy for me. Other types of alcohol, such as bourbon or scotch, I don’t normally have on hand so I would need to pick some of those up if I had a recipe that required them.
If you are interested in learning more about Shaker & Spoon, visit ShakerandSpoon.com.
Anyway… back to the movie review.
Warning… there is a lot of material in this film that might not sit well with some people. There is a lot of sexual scenes including full frontal nudity, attempted rape, and brutal violence. In fact, I was not anticipating all of these things before I watched this film. I knew there would be some violence, but this film has A LOT of graphic violence in it. I was also surprise but how much sex and nudity there was in the film. I wouldn’t expect Jennifer Lawrence to be in a film like this, especially the lead character.
Some of the scenes I had to close my eyes for, and I normally don’t do that. I’m a huge fan of horror movies, so I can handle blood and such. But for me there is a difference between a zombie chewing on someone’s intestines and a “real person” (so to speak) getting the life beat out of them. I guess that is because violence like that is “real” and can (and does) happen in real life where as a zombie munching on it’s victim is just make believe.
Sex and violence aside, the over all story was pretty interesting. I liked the intrigue of “whose playing who” when it came to the Dominika and Nash story line. Just when you think you have an idea whose playing who, something happens to challenge that thought.
I also found myself wondering throughout the film (when Dominika entered Sparrow School and beyond that point) if she was really fully committed to being a mindless, sexy agent for Russian (without having any thoughts of her own) or was she playing the system all along for her own personal gain.
There are some bonus features that come with this film. Admittedly I didn’t watch them all (I just picked a few to watch). I’m not a fan of commentary-like bonus features.
- A New Cold War: Origination and Adaptation
- Agents Provocateurs: The Ensemble Cast
- Tradecraft: Visual Authenticity
- Heart of the Tempest: On Location
- Welcome to Sparrow School: Ballet and Stunts
- A Puzzle of Need: Post-Production
- Director Commentary by Francis Lawrence
- 10 Deleted Scenes (With Optional Commentary by Francis Lawrence
Over all I found the film to be entertaining, even though there was much more sex and violence than I anticipated.
Below is the film’s trailer for your enjoyment. Please note that this is the theatrical trailer. The film is no longer in theaters (it’s available for home viewing).
Kimberly
*I received a free screener copy to review and other goodies. There was no compensation. The opinions expressed are my own and not influenced in any way.