Why "Agent Eve" with Jessica Chastain will not so much deceive as exceed your expectations

On August 20, Agent Eve, a film directed by Tate Taylor, best known for the anti-racist drama The Servant and the thriller Girl on the Train, will be released. The recent horror "Ma" with Octavia Spencer in the title role was also directed by him, but critics spoke about the film "Ma" (2019) on Rotten Tomatoes ambiguously, and the audience did not appreciate it.

By all indications, one could expect that "Agent Eva" would turn out to be a tense action movie about intelligence agents. The poster hinted at this, and the main role was taken by the Hollywood beauty Jessica Chastain, whose hallmark was the roles of strong-willed and strong women with a difficult fate. But according to the plot, there are no spies in the film at all. The problem is that the original title of the tape is simply Ava (this is the name of the central heroine), but the Russian distributors clearly decided to add sonority to it, thereby further misleading the viewer.

Complicated family relationships instead of spy showdowns

A hired killer named Eve (Jessica Chastain) works for a secret criminal organization and silently "removes" high-ranking people. However, she constantly breaks protocol by talking to the victims in an attempt to find out what they are guilty of, that they deserve to die. And this turns into the fact that her own boss Simon (Colin Farrell), ruthless and ready to do anything, begins to hunt for her. But for the time being, Eva is unaware of this: she is busy trying to figure out her past and establish relations with a few relatives whom she has not seen for several years.

The problem is that a certain part of the audience is likely to be disappointed, because instead of spy action, they are waiting for a drama similar in spirit to director Jean-Marc Vallee's project "Sharp Objects". There are not so many action scenes even here, only five or six for the whole film (though we have to admit that they are all superbly staged). The rest of the time, the viewer plunges into the maelstrom of the main character's psychological problems, which, I must say, she has plenty of.

Childhood with imperfect parents

The plot is structured in such a way that the main course of events is periodically interrupted by Eve's memories, so that viewers can better understand the thoughts and motivation of the heroine. So, we learn that the girl did her best to be the best in everything, comfortable and obedient for the sake of her parents, but at some point something went wrong. Attempts to escape from problems and indifference in the family led her first to the army, and then to an even more aggressive environment.

On the example of the relationship of the heroine with her mother and father, you can see how the silence of problems turns into even greater difficulties in the future - for example, alcohol addiction, as happened with Eve. In the end, it turns out to be easier for her to break off relations with her family and find a kind of replacement for her father (in the person of an elderly military leader played by the magnificent John Malkovich) than to constantly return to old injuries.

Important but unresolved topics

Unfortunately, it seems that after identifying important topics, the authors decided not to develop them. We see practically the only scene that reveals the relationship between the characters of Chastain and Malkovich, and it is really very touching, but it is clearly not enough to "put the squeeze" on the viewer.

The same goes for the romantic line. The love triangle, which at first even helps to maintain intrigue, in the end only makes one wonder why it was even inserted into the picture. As for the related storyline, it is present in the film as if only to remind of another tape with Jessica Chastain's participation, "The Big Game."

All of this is a little discouraging, since the creators were clearly going to tell an interesting and deep story. But they did not think over the script to the end, so it is not perceived as whole and convincing, but as if it breaks up into parts that are very weakly connected with each other. This is felt especially well after a while after viewing.

Jessica Chastain as a strong outside but vulnerable woman

The main asset of the picture is, of course, the main character. Thanks to her, there is not even a desire to find fault with certain moments, I just want to admire the game of Jessica Chastain. By the way, there is one more nuance related to marketing submission here. On the poster, the actress looks like a James Bond girl: she is dressed in a low-cut scarlet dress, long red hair falls beautifully over her shoulders. In a word, the image downright screams that the authors are going to focus as much as possible on the beauty and sexual appeal of the charming actress.

The funny thing is that in this outfit the heroine appears in a single episode, which also lasts about ten minutes. The rest of the time, Jessica Chastain wears shoulder-length hair and as simple as possible, even nondescript clothes. Such a move perfectly reflects the inner state of a broken, mortally tired character and at the same time contrasts with the image of a fatal killer, behind which Eva hides vulnerability and poorly healed mental wounds.

Of course, a big name alone is not able to make a movie better by itself - a lot is decided by the direction and the script. And there are questions about the latter. The film manages to convey the topic of relationships and communication in the family very well to the audience, but the authors did not seem to have enough time and desire for everything else. Nevertheless, the tape is still worth your attention. Moreover, she is able to impress not only connoisseurs of Jessica Chastain's talent, but also those who love complex family dramas or are simply crazy about skillfully and spectacularly staged fights in the cinema.