The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018) – Film Review
Escapism at its purest.
The Spy Who Dumped Me—henceforth “Spy”, for brevity and word count—is odd, but I enjoyed myself. Everything was just so excellently-paced that it didn’t feel like I was in the theatre for two hours (more than that, counting trailers). The piece tears down a lot of genre tropes and stereotypes, either outright mocking them or twisting them for the filmmakers’ own creative ends.
(Just as a side-note: I can’t call this a movie—I was simply having too much fun—but nor can I call it a “film”, in my narrower definition of the term. This picture is a “piece”, a new term I’m coining to categorize all the cinema I view that doesn’t go above and beyond, but isn’t so blah that I’ll lose all recollection of it by the next morning. It’s a “middle of the road” show, and that, sometimes, is perfectly fine.) But, as with everything, I prefer to get the bad news out of the way, first…
The biggest gripe I had with the film, after the credits began to roll, is that the piece had a tough time nailing down its antagonist and twists. So many tables are turned and crosses are doubled that I didn’t know what would ultimately be the case in the climax of the film. It felt like every rewrite of the last act was thrown up on-screen to see which would stick…and they all stuck. It seemed jumbled, scatter-brained, but didn’t detract from the rest of the piece, I’d say. The macguffin, too, is a strange case. A touch uninspired, generic. Two different pieces are running at the same time—a buddy comedy with Kunis and McKinnon’s characters, and a spy thriller that doesn’t have a central focus, other than riffing on other spy thrillers. I thought Gillian Anderson—of X-Files fame—would’ve had a larger part, as well. Or, at the very least, Justin Theroux (Mulholland Dr., American Psycho) would be more central—or have a parallel story to Audrey and Morgan’s.
Spy’s director, Susanna Fogel (creator, writer, and exec. producer of Chasing Life), was inspired by all the Bond and Bourne films, and stated in a recent interview with BoxOffice Magazine that it was these films that made her think long and hard about genre conventions, and how best to squeeze more unconventional fun out of them. The action market, admittedly, has become a tad dry, in recent years; what movies aren’t giving Tom Cruise top billing are bland re-imaginings or sequels of classics, or just plain rip-offs.
What Fogel does here is take the grittiness of the Bourne films, the globe-trotting of the 007 franchise, and her lead actors’ knacks for lively performances to make something refreshing. It’s an espionage thriller helmed by females, with all the males that would usually be the leads picking up side-roles, or, at least, not-as-developed co-leads. Mila Kunis (Family Guy, That ‘70s Show) and Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live, Ghostbusters (2016)) are great together; not only are they believable as friends—Audrey and Morgan, respectively—but as people. They’re thrown into a situation (admittedly, in a fairly-convoluted manner) they aren’t readily prepared for, and, at time it goes horribly—hilariously—wrong.
The comedy is cool (actually a really solid poop joke in there…no pun intended), and the action scenes are well-choreographed; a few times, it felt like I was watching a Kingsman brawl—brutal, but elegant. Fogel’s attention, as she said in her BoxOffice interview, was on creating a good comedy piece with action thrown in, but a healthy mix of both, so as the excitement the audience feels doesn’t diminish between the different scenes.
Pacing is good, as I said, and the really draggy scenes were come-and-go. Spy is simple, yet smart; Fogel knew what she wanted to do, and went for it. I can admire that, in a director, because so many are bogged down, creatively, by the studio machine, or have lost all their once-coveted knack for storytelling.
Spy is no Oscar-winner, but I’m glad I went. It allowed me two hours of fun and fancy, and that’s all I can ever ask of a piece. There’s a particular car chase scene in there that’s really well-done—like, edge-of-your-seat good. I got more Ivanna Sakhno (Pacific Rim: Uprising), too, as well as a surprise visit from Paul Reiser (Aliens, Mad About You). So, I can’t be mad at this piece.
Final ‘Risk Assessment: ****/*. A fun romp with some truly unique elements. Not a franchise-starter, but not everything needs to be, these days.
Next review: Slenderman (Aug. 10th)
