FILM
MARRIAGE STORY ‘Black Bag’ is a smart little thriller about love and lies BY MICHAEL J. CASEY
G
eorge and Kathryn appear to have it all. They have high-ranking positions in a British intelligence agency, the perfect house with a kitchen to die for and a marriage that is the envy of everyone around them. “How does it work?” a younger colleague named Clara asks George one night in a moment of transparency. Clara is employed by the same secret ops organization as George and Kathryn. She’s an analyst, and she’s good at her job, but the happy and healthy relationship component still eludes her. Her occupation is the reason: “When you can lie about everything, when you can deny everything, how do you tell the truth about anything?” Here’s the answer: George (Michael Fassbender) loves games but hates liars. Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) doesn’t have George’s love for games, but she shares his disdain for duplicitous opportunists. Interesting line of work they’ve chosen. But as far as Black Bag is concerned, it’s a line of work that could use a few more Georges and Kathryns.
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Director Steven Soderbergh — who also shoots and edits under the pseudonyms Peter Andrew and Mary Ann Bernard — is the perfect filmmaker for this kind of material. The image, with its washed-out color palette, white-hot lights and fluid camera movement, calls attention to itself only to remind you that you are watching a movie of beautiful people doing intelligent things. And when David Koepp’s tightly crafted script kicks in, Soderbergh visually lets his foot off the gas and allows the dialogue to sing and the plot machinations to do their thing. It’s a beautiful partnership, one that mirrors the sophistication and harmony of Black Bag’s lead. The term black bag is a form of protection. Asked where they are going, whom they are seeing or where they were on such-and-such a date, the agents say “black bag” and no further questions, please. It’s code to shield themselves, their informants and sensitive material from double agents. But, as you might expect, it’s greatly abused. Particularly when it comes to romantic
Though Kathryn, Clara, Zoe, relationships, and why Clara It’s spy vs. James and Freddie all get plen(Marisa Abela), her older boyspy in Black ty of screen time, George is the friend Freddie (Tom Burke), Bag. Courtesy: center around which Black Bag Col. James Stokes (RegéClaudette Barius/ spins. Only four people die in Jean Page) and psychiatrist Focus Features Black Bag — a relatively small Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie number for a spy thriller — and even Harris) all look at George and Kathryn that’s too high of a number for him. Too with equal amounts envy and suspicion. high for the spies he’s up against? Well, One of the pleasures of Black Bag, sacrificing tens of thousands to potenand there are many, is that the movie tially save millions is enough justification itself is a red herring. The narrative for them. opens with Clara and Freddie, Stokes But not for George and Kathryn. How and Vaughan attending a couple’s dindoes their marriage work in a world ner at George and Kathryn’s. The where so many others have failed? camaraderie is palpable, and the eveTrust. How do national alliances hold ning becomes more casual and loose together when so many conspire to pull as the wine flows. For the first 30 minthem apart? Black Bag’s answer lies in utes, you might think Black Bag is a the same conviction that George and workplace relationship drama where the Kathryn hold for each other, written on a only indiscretion at hand revolves global scale. around the question of who is sleeping with whom. But then the espionage narrative kicks in with the requisite nuclear secrets, double agents with shifting alleON SCREEN: giances and hidden motives, and you Black Bag is playing have the fixings for one fun time at the in theaters everywhere. movies. MARCH 20, 2025
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