Let’s talk about brands, branding and being branded. Brand-name shopping, too. It’s hard to think about Black Bag, Steven Soderbergh’s new drama, without exploring the implications, permutations and curlicues of that term.
Brand-name entertainment shoppers will ostensibly be drawn to the labels Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender and Pierce Brosnan on the marquee. Blanchett’s character, Kathryn St. Jean, a British government intelligence operative, is the wife of Fassbender’s George Woodhouse, a fellow spook. They even work in the same London office space, under the direction of Arthur Stieglitz (Brosnan), a gimlet-eyed spy-monger in a three-piece suit.
As imagined by director Soderbergh (Magic Mike, No Sudden Move, Erin Brockovich) and screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, Mission: Impossible)—a couple of very bankable brand names—Kathryn and George are in the habit of holding intimate dinner parties with two other couples, all of whom work alongside them in the same MI6-style bureau. Mind games of various sorts are on the menu at these squeaky-tight soirees, with George, the highest-ranking asset at the table, in charge of making his colleagues squirm.
In the best spy-biz-film tradition, it’s hard to tell whether these inquisitive ops and their friends are merely having harmless fun kidding each other with their seemingly aggressive probing and examining, or else viciously goading each other into letting down their guard and revealing their innermost personal secrets. The situation turns even trickier when we learn that George, who cooks the meals for the party, has been lacing the tikka masala with a truth-serum chemical. Just for fun.
Blanchett, of course, is right at home in the role of a cool (verging on frosty) career woman in a cutthroat line of work, mercilessly manipulating those around her while posing in corporate high-fashion clothes. Kathryn embodies that brand with a vengeance. When she suddenly announces she’s off to Zurich, one automatically pictures an assignation with a clandestine lover. Or a Russian trickster selling information. Or both. Kathryn’s most obvious weakness are the pills she “hides” (that’s impossible!) from her colleagues. It’s a pleasure seeing the much-decorated Blanchett luxuriating in her middle age without losing an iota of her essential capacity for menace.
With his black-framed eyeglasses and mid-20th-century-modern wardrobe, Fassbender’s George resembles a combination of Lew Wasserman and William S. Burroughs. His body language completes the effect, as does his meticulous fishing gear. George suspects his spouse of marital infidelity and/or high-level treason, but she’s too cagey to get caught doing either one.
Husband and wife play a cute little game with each other: when one of them gets too close to a “third-rail” line of chatter, the other one will let drop the phrase “black bag,” meaning “let’s not go there, darling.” The pillow talk is wearisome. It’s a bit of what might be called an ingrown relationship. Is their marriage on the rocks? Will the UK fall to pieces on account of their sneaky international shenanigans down at the office? Dunt werry, dollink.
Also grazing in the fortified fields of Vauxhall are Kathryn and George’s comrades-in-arms. Most interesting of these is agency psychologist Zoe Vaughan, played by actor Naomie Harris as a wary wonk able to stay one step ahead of most of the snares she herself has devised for her comrades. Also ideally cast: British actor Tom Burke as Freddy, the odd man out. The line readings would do justice to the spirit of John le Carré or Robert Ludlum. Pretty early on it dawns on us that most of the deceptions on display amount to the pieces of a classic McGuffin.
Congratulations to Soderbergh, Koepp and company for turning in a 93-minute movie matched perfectly with a 93-minute plot line. No extravagant padding here. The world will little note nor long remember Kathryn and George’s delicate tip-toeing through the little murders and silly secrets. Yet Blanchett and Fassbender, nobody’s idea of an endearingly eccentric couple, continue to disturb and amaze.
Now playing at AMC theaters in San Jose, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale; Aquarius Theatre in Palo Alto, Cinemark theaters in Fremont, San Jose, Milpitas and Mountain View; CineLux theaters in Campbell, Los Gatos and San Jose; and the Pruneyard Dine-In Cinemas.
