George 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.
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 relationships, and why Clara (Marisa Abela), her older boyfriend Freddie (Tom Burke), Col. James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page) and psychiatrist Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris) all look at George and Kathryn with equal amounts envy and suspicion.
One of the pleasures of Black Bag, and there are many, is that the movie itself is a red herring. The narrative opens with Clara and Freddie, Stokes and Vaughan attending a couple’s dinner at George and Kathryn’s. The camaraderie is palpable, and the evening becomes more casual and loose as the wine flows. For the first 30 minutes, you might think Black Bag is a workplace relationship drama where the only indiscretion at hand revolves 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 allegiances and hidden motives, and you have the fixings for one fun time at the movies.
Though Kathryn, Clara, Zoe, James and Freddie all get plenty of screen time, George is the center around which Black Bag spins. Only four people die in Black Bag — a relatively small number for a spy thriller — and even that’s too high of a number for him. Too high for the spies he’s up against? Well, sacrificing tens of thousands to potentially save millions is enough justification for them.
But not for George and Kathryn. How does their marriage work in a world where so many others have failed? Trust. How do national alliances hold together when so many conspire to pull them apart? Black Bag’s answer lies in the same conviction that George and Kathryn hold for each other, written on a global scale.
ON SCREEN: Black Bag is playing in theaters everywhere.