"black bag" review

By Nadia Dalimonte

Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender in Black Bag (2025)

​Sex, lies, and espionage. Count on the great Steven Soderbergh to deliver deliciously on all three. He infuses his panache into the familiar spy genre with Black Bag, an intensely romantic thriller that makes no compromises on trusting the audience. With echoes of James Bond, Mission: Impossible, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Soderbergh and three-time collaborator David Koepp find an alluring marital drama in the throes of a British intelligence crisis. The elegant married couple at the center of Black Bag would kill for each other, and that makes for an alluring story, especially in the context of top secret professions forcing them to withhold intelligence. Soderbergh’s exacting style, Koepp’s clever script, and a brilliant ensemble of actors play into the ambiguity and tension. A bewitching puzzle box of style and substance, Black Bag shines as one of the year’s most fun psychological studies.

Everything’s ambiguous in a world of cloaks and daggers. Thanks to the sensibilities of Soderbergh and Koepp, everyone and everything in Black Bag glides with the utmost precision. Intention can be felt reverberating behind each frame, whether tensely capturing a character on the move or pursuing an atmospheric angle. The story doesn’t lean too far into vagueness, nor does it overcompensate with bursts of action-packed fillers. It falls into the Goldilocks principle of “just right.” It’s a compelling story of outsiders and the games they play whilst in a state of constant paranoia. The idea of a married couple who happen to be spies offers just as compelling a narrative, since betrayal doesn’t impact them in the way that it would for ordinary people. The espionage of it all gives the marriage a level of protection where anything can be hidden under the guile that it’s confidential.

The film follows George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender), an elite intelligence officer at London’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). George faces the ultimate loyalty test when a security breach forces him to find a mole in the agency before they can activate Severus, a destructive software that has the power to destabilize a nuclear facility. Five names make the suspect list of being a traitor. Four are friends and colleagues: Freddie (Tom Burke), Clarissa (Marisa Abela), Zoe (Naomie Harris), James (Regé-Jean Page). The fifth is George’s wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), one of the organization’s most powerful and valuable agents. Who has the knowledge and clearance to reach Severus? A carefully spun web of secrets and lies casts doubt on George’s loyalty, leading him down a path of potentially risky devotion.
 
Black Bag poses the question, “When you can lie about everything, how do you tell the truth about anything?” David Koepp’s script takes this idea and glides with it, particularly through exploring the devotion between George and Kathryn. The couple’s professional loyalty calls upon them to mask the political turbulence that surrounds them. They are experts at not letting their emotions leave a facial trace. George and Kathryn’s achingly cool exterior raises envious eyebrows from their surroundings: how can two people in this line of espionage possibly operate on a romantic wavelength? How can they sustain a real relationship built on trust and communication? The trick lies in the “black bag,” their code for where to put information they can’t share. Koepp achieves the marvelous feat of centering the story using this portrait of a marriage, while also keeping ambiguity between the couple. More often than not, the film teases out details about George and Kathryn respectfully through other characters and/or scenarios.

The couple’s fabulous-looking home doesn’t reveal a lot of personal secrets about them in particular, but does invite the lives of others onto an exquisitely lit table. The film features not one, but two absolutely riveting dinner sequences, feasting with layered narratives and visual treats. The mind games Kathryn and especially George play with their guests echo bits of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. It’s a serious game of truth and dare, where characters chew up and spit out information about each other, secretly hoping they can dare certain crucial truths to come out. These sequences are tons of fun to watch unravel. The biting dialogue keeps you hooked on every word, as do the brilliant cast, who keep you guessing on what the characters’ intentions are.

Whilst everyone at the table has a clear job of pulling intelligence from technology, they reveal themselves as much more concerned with pulling from each other’s humanity. The character of Clarissa (Abela) brings forth an intriguing observation. She pushes George (Fassbender) on his emotionality, questioning why he can’t have a normal conversation or express his feelings in a way that doesn’t sound so…operative. Clarissa’s self-awareness (played with great charisma by Abela) breaks up some of the tension, and speaks to a through-line of sophisticated humor in the film. The stakes are high, but so is the playfulness, and one can feel the satisfaction everyone’s having in devouring their characters. Michael Fassbender in particular brings magnificent control to George’s interior conflict, whether it’s his calm demeanor or minimalistic line deliveries. He has an alluring counterpart in his wife Kathryn, played with a delicious mix of vulnerability and expressiveness by Cate Blanchett. Blanchett brings a hypnotic old-school glamour to her role that aligns with Fassbender’s classic portrayal of George, making them a perfect match. Fassbender and Blanchett are also joined by a tremendous ensemble, from Naomie Harris and Regé-Jean Page to a small yet impactful appearance by Pierce Brosnan.

The ensemble of gorgeous spies, and the particular casting of Brosnan and Harris, sprinkles a bit of James Bond energy to the story. Additinally, the themes built on espionage, technology, and loyalty echo some quintessential Bond storytelling. These echoes enhance the cinematic feeling Black Bag carries, and Steven Soderbergh makes it all look so easy. Through lean and exacting direction, Soderbergh shows the beauty of efficient filmmaking. He strives to make one lean picture after another, and in the last few years alone, continued to prove his remarkable range; from 2017’s Logan Lucky and 2018’s Unsane, to 2022’s Kimi and 2024’s Presence. Black Bag is by no means a “welcome back” for Soderbergh, but rather a testament to the consistency he’s demonstrated throughout his career. He is simply one of the greats, with an envious ability to visualize such captivating stories in swift runtimes. Throughout Black Bag, Soderbergh draws tension and mystery from achingly beautiful and precise angles, full of narrative intention.   

​The film’s exquisite crafts also speak to the strength of Soderbergh’s vision. From the director’s own cinematography (the fog on George’s glasses while cooking!) and Ellen Mirojnick’s costume design, to David Holmes’s score and Philip Messina’s production design (George and Kathryn’s house!), the visual language beams with 1970s London glam. The characters’ luxurious, sophisticated costumes are never compromised. There is a consistent level of detail to each one, whether Kathryn’s sleek fabrics she can easily slip in and out of, or George’s perfectly tailored suits and matching glasses. All the locations feel fully realized and evoke the feeling of watching a 60s or 70s film in a contemporary vein, which can also be said for how the characters operate. Fassbender’s George in particular reminds me of Michael Caine in Sleuth and Richard Burton in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, especially in the sophisticated mental gymnastics and controlled playfulness of those characters.

Some settings can be described as having “a quietly noisy relaxed intensity,” to quote Burton in Virginia Woolf?. Black Bag operates in that vein of intensity from beginning to end. A sleek and precise surface masks a whole lot of messy turbulence. What can’t be masked, no matter how much expertise these spies have in cloaking their intentions, is how sexy intelligence and romantic loyalty are. This story works just as much magic as a relationship drama than it does as a spy thriller.

Black Bag arrives in theaters on March 14.