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This week at Tryon Theatre is “Black Bag,” a suave and sophisticated spy thriller from multifaceted director Steven Soderbergh, auteur at the helm of the Ocean’s 11 trilogy (2001-2004). Soderbergh is known for exercising his eye for sleek cinematic style to wonderfully compelling ends. 

“Black Bag” is an attractively novel film, written for the screen rather than adapted, telling an absorbing and intelligent story for the very first time. Well-made, original films are always in short supply, and “Black Bag” is a refreshing tonic for the parched cinematic palette. 

Within the genre of espionage films, the film owes a greater debt to the likes of “The Day of the Jackal” (Zinneman 1973) and “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (Alfredson 2011) than it does to the most iconic format of the British intelligence service, James Bond. This film sidesteps the habit of indulgent action set pieces, focusing instead on the mental qualities of intelligence operatives, more verbal sparring than physical, every conversation imbued with subtext and dripping with dry wit. Now, to highlight the merits of the film’s restraint is not to imply that the film is without its indulgence of violence and bodily thrills, but rather to compliment how said “cheap” pleasures are balanced by more elevated appeals. Like any spy movie, there will be scenes not for the visually faint of heart. Still, the film does not revel in these moments of darkness, treating them as necessary logistics of an uncaring world and a violent occupation.

This is a film where the plot itself is window dressing for emotional tension between the two film’s leads, a married couple, each a spy, perpetually torn between the duty of secrecy to their work and the duty of honesty to their union. Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender are perfectly cast as this couple. Their sharp mannequin features are passive yet alert, belying their subterranean rage and paranoia. Additionally, it wouldn’t be a fashionable spy film without the style, which every frame has in generous detail. Wardrobes, homes, and offices are all meticulously appointed and assembled, their calculated display a reflection of the obsessively curated personalities composing the world of espionage. 

“Black Bag” is a simply beautiful film to look at, but with more than enough substance to press beyond the attractive surface into the world of internal narrative predictions and spiraling cinematic tension. 

The film is certainly intended for an adult audience, not simply because of its mature content but more due to its mature tone. It rewards a viewer willing to hold questions until the end and let the art speak for itself in its totality. A mature patience, informed by experience, is required to value a film that exchanges exposition for intuition, favoring cerebral conflict over the corporeal. We hope you will join us for the sleek, mature, and reliably thrilling entertainment of “Black Bag”!