In Black Bag, Soderbergh is at the Top of His Spy game
Black Bag is about two things: faithfulness and lighting. That may not sound like roaring endorsement of a spy thriller, but they bring unique aspects that director Steven Soderbergh weaves in effortlessly to this cool, dexterous film. Soderbergh is just about the most efficient director around, so it only takes the first scene to tell us everything we need to know. A confident tracking shot follows Michael Fassbender’s SAS agent George through a club and a meeting with a contact who tells him that a secret project has been stolen by another SAS agent. There are five suspects—one of whom is George’s wife, Kathryn (Cate Blanchett).
And with that we’re off, though the plot veers in unexpected directions compared to genre expectations. Instead of focusing on fight scenes and jet-setting, Black Bag is built around conversations and relationships. The biggest set piece stages an early dinner party with George, Kathryn, and the rest of the suspects. George, respected for his honesty and ability to sniff out lies, initiates a game, probing the other agents about their desires and failures. He also pays the price for spiking their dinner with truth serum, as he’s on the receiving end of some rather sharp barbs. But George seems unfazed. He’s a stalwart agent whose central character trait is his unapologetic commitment to his marriage.
Fassbender does so much character work with so few words, turning lines like “I didn’t cook” into punchlines—and outright punches. The emphasis he brings to the most terse and mundane bits of dialogue (which was also on display in David Fincher’s The Killer) does wonders for the film. Blanchett is also on top of her game, able to play the coy spy and the sincere partner so effortlessly that it’s hard to know which side of her is on rocky ground. Beyond them, the stars of the film are the lighting and the dialogue. Soderbergh sets a visual tone that shifts from cool to warm back to cool, readying the audience for the emphasized, expressive lighting to come. Throughout the film stages scenes amid the wonders of dim lighting that somehow orbits out to an enveloping glow. For the dinner scenes, the camera floats above the agents, crowding them all in the frame as they respond to each others’ answers.
This is Soderbergh at his technical height. But that doesn’t mean the plot slouches. Soderbergh finds the verbal and intellectual games of spycraft far more fascinating than fight scenes. The story crooks many times, as any good spy story should, but it never loses sight of its central tension. “Somehow, it’s about us.” Can the commitment to another person be greater than absolutely everything in this world: money, power, glory, independence? What good is a marriage in a modern world (and industry) where allegiances are always wont to shift? The reflection makes Black Bag a surprisingly romantic feature amid the doubt and the missile strikes.
Whether you come for the genre playfulness, the acting, the directorial technique, or the intriguing questions about faithfulness, you’re in good hands. Black Bag is quietly one of the best crowd pleasers to arrive throughout the last few years.
