When you look at his decades-long filmography, going all the way back to his 1989 debut, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Steven Soderbergh has often explored relationships and their fractured impact. Whatever genre he tackles, this is a subject that Soderbergh would return to time and time again, even Ocean’s Eleven is about winning back someone’s heart whilst pulling off a complicated heist. In the case of his latest feature, Black Bag, it raises the big question of whether a romance between spies can be stable.
Written by David Koepp, who has previously collaborated with Soderbergh on Kimi and Presence, the film centers on intelligence agent George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) who is assigned five of his colleagues as one suspected of committing treason, including his wife Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett), another intelligence agent. This puts George in a position where he is torn between faithfulness to his marriage or loyalty to his country.
Being no stranger to the spy genre as he co-wrote 1996’s Mission: Impossible – thus starting the most exciting spy-centric action franchise currently – Koepp approaches the genre here with less globe-trotting adventuring and more about deception through intimacy. Despite its modern setting that features a McGuffin in the shape of an unseen cyberweapon, the film has more in common with the Cold War paranoia of John le Carré’s fiction, particularly Tinker Tailor Solider Spy which was all about spy versus spy taking place in the same workplace. There is even a touch of The Ipcress File as Fassbender seems to be rocking the same horn-rimmed glasses that Sir Michael Caine wore as Harry Palmer.
While the influences of previous spy media are obvious, how Black Bag sets itself apart is the wordplay between the numerous relationships that going on under the same roof. Whatever possible deception there is going on between George and Kathryn, their marriage seems to function better compared to the younger relationships, whether it is the hotheaded Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke) and his younger date Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela) who also works in surveillance, or Colonel James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page) and his current date, Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris).
While there has been an ongoing debate regarding how problematic the playboy antics of James Bond, which is often seen as a male fantasy, Black Bag is interested in exploring how that lifestyle can be harmful, as best explored in the film’s initial dinner sequence. While Fassbender gets the most screen-time as the cold-hearted agent who is willing exploit anyone’s secret to achieve his mission, Blanchett deserves as much attention as the femme fatale whose motivations you are never quite sure. And speaking of James Bond, Pierce Brosnan doesn’t appear much, but oozes with charisma with a touch of profanity as the big boss.
There may be a lot to like about his previous outing, Presence, which is defined by its unique visual approach to represent a ghost’s POV, Soderbergh is more successful here with a film that is more conventionally shot. As one would expect from Soderbergh who serves as his own cinematographer, it is stunning to look at from the streets of London to the slick modern offices of the agency, and since this is a story that is more wordplay than action, it is all about the power of a close-up and the tension that comes from just a conversation that could go either way.
