Spy

A suave, debonair spy holds a sinister Eastern European at gunpoint, making it clear who is in control, then sneezes because of hay fever. Meanwhile, the spy’s tech support precisely guides him through the elaborate underground complex, while the other CIA hub agents deal with a pest infestation. From these opening moments, Spy presents familiar features of the spy genre while simultaneously adding its own comedic spin to them. Paul Feig and Melissa McCarthy’s third collaboration (after Bridesmaids and The Heat) is a spy action comedy that knows its genre and winks this knowingness to the audience. It takes itself seriously enough to deliver startling action sequences with genuinely nasty violence, but maintains humour to ensure that each scene delivers the laughs. The film relies, with great judgement, on McCarthy’s versatility, talent and charisma for both its dramatic and comedic impact. McCarthy plays Susan Cooper, a brilliant CIA tech who is sent into the field due to her anonymity after agent identities are leaked. Cooper takes on international arms dealer Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne) and her gang of thugs, while ex-master spy Rick Ford (Jason Statham) blunderingly attempts to complete the mission himself, stopping just long enough to tell Cooper of his ludicrous exploits. McCarthy commands every scene she’s in with a layered performance of ambition, frustration, creativity and determination. Whether talking her way into a casino or out of a Mexican standoff, Cooper remains sympathetic and compelling. While she is very funny, the biggest laughs of the film are often prompted by Statham, who repeatedly sends up his hard man image with preposterous stories and bungling incompetence. Strong support also come from Jude Law, Allison Janney, Miranda Hart and Peter Serafinowicz, while the script delivers fast and sophisticated gags and Feig proves himself a skilled action director, especially during a fight between Cooper and opponent Nargis Fakhri that is as gripping and wince-inducing as any scrap Paul Greengrass has delivered. As well being hilarious, intelligent and exciting, Spy is also important and, as another critic has argued, groundbreaking. Spy dares to propose that (a) it is alright to be fat because fat does not equal worthless or wretched; (b) fat jokes are not alright and need to be highlighted as such; (c) a woman does not need to be judged beautiful by others in order to feel valued; (d) a woman’s narrative need not end in romantic resolution with a man to be happy because, shockingly, there is more to life to romance! While there is much to enjoy in Spy, it is also to be applauded as a sobering reminder of the inequality of gender representation in mainstream cinema, and how far we have to go before such a film is commonplace rather than exceptional.

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