Steven Soderbergh has a brand new bag. A black bag, that is.
Black Bag is a chic spy thriller, and it’s Soderbergh’s best movie in years. This exhilarating caper harkens back to the style and swagger of Out of Sight, but hones its chops with the leanness of Soderbergh’s recent works. There’s not a frame wasted in Black Bag as Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett star as a husband-and-wife duo who are top spies at the same agency. Their life is one of mutually agreed upon secrecy. Anytime something risks mixing business and pleasure, they simply advise: “Black bag.”
That nifty lingo has the “Georgia rule” effect. Once a party invokes the rule, it becomes law. “Where are you going?” George asks Kathryn when she mentions an impending work trip.
“Black bag,” she replies playfully. The interrogation stops there. If only it were so simple (or complicated) for every relationship.
The limits of George and Kathryn’s black bag, however, faces a test when George learns that his wife is a chief suspect in his next assignment. It’s a tricky deal that involves a close inner circle, a rat, and a weapon called Severus that poses catastrophic risks. George, ever so good at juggling his roles as spy and spouse, hosts a dinner party. All George and Kathryn’s closest friends work at the agency, too, and they round-out the usual suspects. George, naturally, advises Kathryn to avoid the chana masala. It contains a secret ingredient: truth serum.
The table hosts two other couples: James (Regé-Jean Page), promoted over George somewhat awkwardly, and his girlfriend Zoe (Naomie Harris). She’s the resident shrink at the agency and keeps everyone’s dirt in her own black bag, so to speak. Then there’s the mercurial couple of spy Freddie (Tom Burke) and surveillance tech Clarissa (Marisa Abela), both seemingly lower stakes material in business and pleasure. Everyone, unwittingly or not, plays along with George and Kathryn’s dinner game. They signed up for this life and they know the rules.
When everyone shares such a closely knit and incestuous relationship, though, it makes for juicy drama. Unable to trust anyone personally and professionally, George can’t quite eliminate Kathryn from the list with one messy dinner. But they’re both down for a game of fidelity and trust.
Back at the office, though, their boss (Pierce Brosnan) yells and blubbers about keeping the peace. But even he can’t quite articulate what Severus is or does. Take it as a metaphor for the black bag, that seemingly elusive truth that contains but eats away at a marriage.
The script by frequent Soderbergh collaborator David Koepp (Presence) keeps a viewer guessing until the very end. Black Bag smartly knows what to reveal and what to withhold. Even George can’t be fully trusted when his perspective frames the affair. On paper, he may be the likeliest suspect, having been passed over for a promotion and seemingly accepting that Kathryn wears the pants in their relationship. And Fassbender offers a refreshing antithesis to the sex-for-dinner-death-for-breakfast spies that usually fuel bigscreen capers. He’s smart and quietly observant, like a sexed-up George Smiley with terrific fashion sense and spectacular interior decorating.
The ensemble plays a mean poker game, too. Every character here is a professional bluffer. Black Bag enjoys its twists and turns without feeling gimmicky or overly twisty. It becomes increasingly ambiguous just exactly who is the hunter and who is the prey as Kathryn’s trip (to Zurich, of course) explodes layers of surveillance and international incidents, all a bit too perfectly plotted to be a sloppy mishap for such a high-ranking spy.
Her suspicion seemingly arouses her, too. “Would you kill for me, George?” she asks, as Blanchett relishes the spy’s beguiling chameleon-like charm. It’s clear that someone is going down in Black Bag, but the thrills come not in anticipation of a Mr. and Mrs. Smith-style showdown. Instead, this battle of wits demands a meeting of the minds, and Fassbender and Blanchett are too good a duo to waste on mindless action.
Black Bag is deliciously, but it’s the kind of film that one might too readily dismiss as a superficial lark. Soderbergh’s lighting, slick camerawork, and terrific sense of style—George and Kathryn’s glassware and servingware may be the must-own gifts of the season—while the taut pacing keeps audiences consistently decoding the manoeuvres that unfold before one’s eyes.
The thrilling and stylish escapism offers a cover for what ultimately serves as perceptive commentary. Black Bag is less a game of spy versus spy than a battle of human intellect versus artificial intelligence. Severus joins a list of doomsday doo-hickeys in Hollywood movies that connect the threat of artificial intelligence with the end of humanity. However, as Black Bag weaves newfangled technology with old-school espionage, it proves that there’s no match for the human mind. All the smarts of the hottest gizmos and gadgets can’t match the senses of loyalty, empathy, pity, and jealously that exist outside codes and keystrokes. It’s a smart caper that feels refreshingly old-fashioned, yet decidedly contemporary with its take on the value of emotional intelligence.
