It's a film about the ends to which a young woman, a ballerina who's basically forced by circumstances out of her control to sell her body and soul as a spy, will go to pull herself out of slavery, and lead herself and her beloved mother out of the wretches of poverty. The means to those ends made for a cold tumultuous ride that sometimes left me wanting, and other times left me looking at my watch, although I ended up enjoying the film as a whole.

As others have more eloquently said it's is an old fashioned adult spy thriller. Its sexiness and romance are only as deep as the protagonist, commendably played by Jenifer Lawrence, would lead you to believe. And she does a lot of that. If you're looking for this movie to be really sexy, or really romantic, you WILL be disappointed.

The realization that this movie wasn't what I imagined, neither sexy nor romantic, was basically part of the twists and turns of the film as the ever endearing and seductive lead character pushed all the buttons that her Soviet handlers trained her, like all Sparrows, to do. And as I alluded to in my opening remarks... at times this film was a chore. But the story twisted and turned and finally came together in a way that both re-framed the journey in a more favorable light and gave the lead characters journey a satisfying conclusion.

A couple of odds and ends:

The supporting cast was very good, despite Jeremy Irons' almost non-existent Russian accent. Joel Edgerton was especially good. I really liked the cinematography, and the Russian, European backdrop was really a breath of fresh air.