Red Sparrow

All ballerina Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence – Hunger Games) has wanted to do since she was young is to dance, but a tragic accident on the stage breaks her leg and shatters her dreams. Things go from bad to worse, as the ballet company she works for has stopped paying for her sick mother’s healthcare, and so it won’t be long before they come to take back the apartment they live in…

Her uncle Vanya offers a way to help, but he’s a member of the Russian military intelligence, and his help comes with strings… Though, he promises ‘just one job’ with a large pay-out, things don’t go according to plan, and she has no choice but to go to ‘Sparrow school’ – a notorious training centre where attractive patriots learn to detect the needs in others, in order to exploit them…

Red Sparrow is a delightful surprise. A tense thriller, which doesn’t hold back on the violence. Her bid to play both sides off against each other leads to an almost Hitchcockian game of cat and mouse between American and Russian intelligence services, which will leave you gripped until the end.

Natalie Tyldesley-Marshall