Berlin’s historic Delphi Palast cinema is famous for one of the most iconic scenes in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009). Its monumental colonnaded façade, retro neon signs and red velvet tapestry take visitors on a journey through time and space. For the Berlin preview of Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag last week, the cinema was once again transformed into a film set, or at least it felt that way to the guests. Thoroughly searched at the entrance and asked to leave their phones in brown numbered bags, it felt like a strange extravagance, a bit over the top for a film that had already been released in most of the world. But as soon as the lights went down in the theatre and the film began, it became clear: it was all part of the choreography. The preparation made the audience slip right into a spy story, even before the projections began. At the heart of the thriller is a mysterious control dynamic among the characters, based on the non, or just partial, disclosure of confidential information, all of which can be relegated to what the film’s characters call the “black bag”.
George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) is preparing dinner for his wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) and two other pairs of friends: Clarissa (Marisa Abela) and Freddie (Tom Burke), Zoe (Naomie Harris) and James (Regè-Jean Page). The night of “fun and games”, announced by the hosts, translates into hallucinogenic chana masala, which spices up an “all against all” verbal slaughter that culminates in an actual stabbing in hand. This incipit of blood, tears and screams is only the first step in George’s strategy to find out which of his colleagues is responsible for the leak of Severus, a software capable of nuclear destruction. The dinner guests are indeed “an unusual group: a data-scraper, two agents, and the in-house shrink”. They are all agents of the Secret Intelligence Service. As such, in one way or another, they are all caught in a dense net of double-edged lies. Because, as Clarissa put it, you either date someone in the industry who lies to protect you, or you date someone outside the industry and then lie to protect them. Lies, said and non, are the engine of this fast and gripping, yet forgettable thriller.
The bar was set high for Black Bag, perhaps too high. The expectation of seeing such an exceptional cast with Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett and Pierce Brosnan, directed by Steven Soderbergh, was simply too good to be true. And indeed, it does not live up to the hype. The steaming opening of Black Bag is the highlight of a rather lukewarm film. The pacing slows down at times, the plot twists are predictable, the photography by Soderbergh himself is rather scholastic and the set design by Anna-Lynch Robinson is so researched that it looks artificial, much like the exaggerated make-up. And by the way, George and Kathryn’s kitchen looks so much like the one in the set of Alfonso Cuaron’s incredible miniseries Disclaimer, also starring Cate Blanchett, that the comparison between the two productions is inevitable. And makes the spectators wonder if there shouldn’t be a reversal: Black Bag might be better adapted into a miniseries, while Disclaimer into a film?
In all this, the exceptions are the female co-stars, who make their male counterparts fade into embarrassing caricatures of themselves and the classic secret agent stereotypes. Naomie Harris, who has already collected a fair amount of experience in James Bond movies, such as Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015), and No Time to Die (2021), rocks as a devoted Christian ready to break every rule to save people’s lives. But the real star is the relative newcomer Marisa Abela, only apparently a naive and fragile nerd who reveals herself as a brilliant, humorous player. After a breakthrough with the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black (2024), Abela shines in each scene, defying the stars, who more than ever seem to have been trapped into their customary roles. Blanchett is once again the sexy, manipulative power woman, Fassbender the disturbed good boy, and Brosnan the efficient 007 agent. All good, nothing new. Where is the good old witty Soderbergh of Erin Brockovich (2000) and Ocean’s Eleven (2001)?
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