I watched "Ava" and it's not a fun movie
Jan. 23rd, 2021 07:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexHere I mean "Ava the 2020 assassin movie" - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8784956/ - and not the other movies of the same name. (2/5 stars, watch it only if you really like this genre)
Ava has two big Names fronting it - Jessica Chastain in the titular role and John Malkovich as her handler/mentor. There are also other Names in the second row - Colin Farrell as her main antagonist, Geena Davis as her mother, and Joan Chen as ... well, it would be a bit of a spoiler to say.
Unfortunately, the plot is mostly bog-standard. Chastain's Ava (notably, nobody gets more than one name in this film) is a high-skills/high-priced assassin and things Go Wrong so she has to fight her own organization to survive. There's some shooting and a whole lot of nasty brutal hand-to-hand combat. It's not pleasant to watch.
Where the film might have differentiated itself was in the character stories. Ava and her sister, played by Jess Weixler, are in a love triangle over the same man. Ava is an abuse survivor and recovering alcoholic who fled her terrible family situation into the army and from there into black ops. This film foregrounds the family and, again, it's not pleasant to watch. By the end you clearly understand what has driven Ava to become the person you don't want your kids around but also, I don't want to be around her either. I root for her to win only because Farrell's Simon (one name only, Vasily) is just a worse human being.
I give the film credit for centering female gaze, and for everyone putting in good, if very gritty, performances. But somehow this fails to catch me the way Atomic Blonde did.
Ava has two big Names fronting it - Jessica Chastain in the titular role and John Malkovich as her handler/mentor. There are also other Names in the second row - Colin Farrell as her main antagonist, Geena Davis as her mother, and Joan Chen as ... well, it would be a bit of a spoiler to say.
Unfortunately, the plot is mostly bog-standard. Chastain's Ava (notably, nobody gets more than one name in this film) is a high-skills/high-priced assassin and things Go Wrong so she has to fight her own organization to survive. There's some shooting and a whole lot of nasty brutal hand-to-hand combat. It's not pleasant to watch.
Where the film might have differentiated itself was in the character stories. Ava and her sister, played by Jess Weixler, are in a love triangle over the same man. Ava is an abuse survivor and recovering alcoholic who fled her terrible family situation into the army and from there into black ops. This film foregrounds the family and, again, it's not pleasant to watch. By the end you clearly understand what has driven Ava to become the person you don't want your kids around but also, I don't want to be around her either. I root for her to win only because Farrell's Simon (one name only, Vasily) is just a worse human being.
I give the film credit for centering female gaze, and for everyone putting in good, if very gritty, performances. But somehow this fails to catch me the way Atomic Blonde did.
