Movie Review: Black Bag (2025)

Genre: Spy Drama  

Director: Steven Soderbergh  

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Naomie Harris, Pierce Brosnan, Marisa Abela  

Running Time: 94 minutes  

Synopsis: British counterintelligence officer George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) has to find out which intelligence team member sold a top secret cybersecurity weapon to enemy agents. One of the suspects is George's own wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), the head of the signals division. Other possible traitors include up-and-comer James (Regé-Jean Page), satellite imagery specialist Clarissa (Marisa Abela), staff psychiatrist Zoe (Naomie Harris), and case officer Freddie (Tom Burke). George has to safeguard his marriage while deploying mind games and state-of-the-art surveillance to uncover the culprit.

What Works Well: An amalgamation of John le Carré and Harry Palmer with a dash of the Smiths, this is a mostly grim but sometimes wry spy whodunnit. Michael Fassbender elegantly channels Michael Caine and creates in George Woodhouse a cold-as-ice agent who made his legend destroying his own father (deservedly so). He now faces a moment of truth with his wife, having to rely on deep reservoirs of trust to counteract mounting evidence of guilt. All the suspects are adept at playing spy games, and director Steven Soderbergh gets into a groove of simultaneously presenting and casting doubt on all the necessary details. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The tone awkwardly oscillates between serious and absurd, and the dialogue is more glib than thoughtful. For a group of supposedly clever spies, way too many of these characters are bedding each other and losing control of their emotions and libido. 

Key Quote:

Clarissa: When you can lie about everything, when you can deny everything, how do you tell the truth about anything?



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Movie Review: Back To Black (2024)

Genre: Musical Biography  

Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson  
Starring: Marisa Abela, Jack O'Connell, Eddie Marsan, Lesley Manville  

Running Time: 122 minutes  

Synopsis: In London, teenager Amy Winehouse (Marisa Abela) comes from a modest working class family and is blessed with a throwback singing voice. She has a close relationship with her grandmother Cynthia (Lesley Manville), while her taxi driver father Mitch (Eddie Marsan) fancies himself a crooner. Amy is more into jazz and writes emotional songs inspired by her addictions to men, booze, weed, and bulimia. On the cusp of success, Amy takes a break from music and falls into a turbulent relationship with bad boy Blake (Jack O'Connell), providing the inspiration to write songs for her next album, Back To Black. 

What Works Well: This impressionistic portrait of a troubled artist succeeds in capturing the fountain of artistry at the intersection of talent, passion, environment, and character. Writer Matt Greenhalgh and director Sam Taylor-Johnson maintain an intense focus on Amy, allowing her to own her success as an uncompromising anachronistic revivalist of jazz music and 1960s glamour, and just as fully embrace all the fault lines of her tragedy: attraction to bad boys, substance abuse, and a wicked temper. With the musical highlights seamlessly weaving through the narrative, Marisa Abela does her own singing and embodies Amy in a hauntingly honest performance punctuated by searing line deliveries. The recreation of early 2000s London fashions adds organic texture.

What Does Not Work As Well: Some of the jumps in time and place are uncoordinated, leaving a few side characters (including Amy's mother and a roommate) stranded. The running time is slightly padded, but the origins of Amy's demonic addictions deserved more attention. 

Key Quote:

Amy: I need to live, my songs.

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