The Spy Who Dumped Me; Mila Kunis; Kate McKinnon; Justin Theroux
The Spy Who Dumped Me is a funny, intelligent, self-aware (and violent) action-comedy.
I was nine when I first saw a James Bond film, Live and Let Die, with Roger Moore in the lead. At that age, 007’s comment when Solitaire (Jane Seymour) asks him if they have time to continue their lovemaking lessons went miles (as I was allowed to call them then) over my head. “Of course. There’s no sense going out half-cocked.”
I mention this to note that spies have been sniggering for a while. An earlier Bond movie, Casino Royale in 1967 with David Niven in the tuxedo, has a satirical eye. In more recent times we have seen Mike Myers as Austin Powers, Rowan Atkinson as Johnny English (co-scripted by two regular 007 writers), Colin Firth as a man with a lethal umbrella in Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman films and lots of others.
The newer agents are female, both in the serious espionage dramas (Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde, Jennifer Lawrence in Red Sparrow) and the send-ups (Charlie’s Angels, Melissa McCarthy in Paul Feig’s Spy). The Spy Who Dumped Me, with its titular nod to the Austin Powers franchise, is something like a combination of the two: it’s both funnier and more violent than most spy movies. I liked it a lot.
It’s also a movie that doesn't muck around with its title. No need for Alan Turing here.
The film opens with a shootout in a street market in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius then cuts to a birthday party in a Los Angeles bar. The birthday girl, Audrey (Mila Kunis), is dealing with two bits of bad news. First, she is turning 30. Second, her boyfriend, Drew (Justin Theroux), has dumped her via text message.
Audrey is consoled by her over-the-top best friend, aspiring actress Morgan (Kate McKinnon, who fans of Saturday Night Live will know well). Morgan's surname is Freeman and, yes, there are jokes about that later. There are also jokes about, among others, Woody Harrelson and Patrick Dempsey. But the funniest connection between an unreal plot and a real person comes later, with an “appearance” by whistleblowing computer hacker Edward Snowden.
The shifting between Vilnius and LA is cleverly done. When we first see Audrey, she is holding a plastic pistol, playing a shoot-’em-up video game. Drew’s gun is real, as are those of the men chasing him. Back in LA, we next see a pool table, which reminds us that a few seconds earlier, across the world, Drew found a singular use for a cue ball. Amid all of this, Audrey and Drew still manage to text each other, with amusing results.
This fast, funny, high-body-count sequence ends with the film’s title coming on to the screen. Copy that: Drew is the spy who dumps Audrey. We soon learn that his real job is not running a podcast about jazz and economics. He works for the CIA. Or does he?
That question will come to be asked about everybody in this movie, including the next spy who turns up in Audrey’s life, Sebastian (Scottish actor Sam Heughan). He claims he works for M16, and maybe he does.
I haven’t seen a lot of Heughan’s work but on the strength of this performance he has landed on my list of candidates for the next 007. He has the accent and he is Chris Hemsworth-level handsome, for starters.
I mention our Thor because it’s an accurate comparison, and because there are some good lines about Australians in this movie, including in a scene in which Audrey and Morgan take on a couple of young Aussie backpackers in Prague (Ruby Kammer and Genevieve McCarthy).
There are some other fun-to-watch small roles, such as Gillian Anderson (near the front of my 007 queue) as head of the M16 and Paul Reiser and Jane Curtin as Morgan’s laid-back parents in New Jersey.
Ukrainian actress Ivanna Sakhno is coolly terrific in a larger role, as Nadedja, a former (but failed) Olympic gymnast who has become a hired assassin. When she, in Prague, is in a tower with a sniper rifle her hirer tells her, via the earpiece, to shoot “two dumb American women”. She looks through the telescopic gunsight at the tourists in the streets below and … well, you can guess.
But the standouts are McKinnon and Kunis. This is no odd-couple adventure. They are as close as friends can be, which comes in handy later when Nadedja confronts them.
Each of them feels they have been underestimated. McKinnon, with a blend of no-nonsense intelligence, emotional fragility and borderline insanity, is wonderful to watch.
“My God! Jesus! What happened?’’ she says, white singlet stained with blood, as she and Audrey walk away from the aftermath of a spectacular car chase.
Audrey and Morgan are in Prague as part of a multi-city quest initiated by Drew. They will also see Vienna, Paris and Amsterdam. The film, mainly shot in Budapest, is easy on the eye.
Their job is to deliver a trophy Drew left in Audrey’s flat. One assumes the trophy has something inside it. Failure to deliver it will bring about the end of the world, etcetera.
Sebastian tracks them. So we have two civilian women, two spies and lots of other people toting guns. All of them learn lessons. Fondue can kill you, for example. If you want to be an international woman of mystery, best you know how to drive a manual car, or know more French that the lines you learned to audition for The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Speaking of physical misfortune, will Audrey and Morgan be captured (by good or bad forces, who knows?), strung up by the wrists, tortured and interrogated? Will there be cracks about Mission Impossible? Will the Pink Panther theme music be played? Will there be a joke about Honore de Balzac? The final one I will confirm. It made me laugh, and reminded me of Roger Moore’s joke in Live and Let Die.
The Spy Who Dumped Me is the second movie from American director Susanna Fogel. Her debut was the 2014 romantic comedy Life Partners. She co-wrote the script with David Iserson, a former SNL writer whose subsequent TV credits include Mad Men, Mr Robot and United States of Tara.
The result is a funny, intelligent, self-aware (and, to repeat, MA15+ violent) action-comedy that also touches, lightly but intelligently, on the conversation of the moment: the need to give women the credit they are due. I hope there is a sequel.
“Does anyone ever tell you you’re a little much?” Drew says to Morgan when they first meet. That putdown hurts her, though she doesn’t show it. She doesn’t even tell Audrey. He saunters off, cool and aloof, wanting to chat up Audrey. He has no idea what’s coming.
The Spy Who Dumped Me (MA15+)
4 stars
National release
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