Marriage, Infidelity, And Espionage Fit Neatly Inside Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag

Black Bag is the most restrained Steven Soderbergh has been in years. As buttoned-up and cagey as his lead, Michael Fassbender, Soderbergh tones down the kooky angles and artistic freedom bestowed by his iPhone camera for this thriller. It’s all to his benefit. Soderbergh spends little time rummaging around his bag, quickly finding thematic resonance in a tight script from David Koepp and boundless charisma from a searing cast anchored by Fassbender and Cate Blanchett, who slink through the movie with an intensity that gives way to a sexy, funny good time. 

Known for placing his camera in the most oblique corner of any location, Soderbergh’s cinematography is on its best behavior in Black Bag. However, he’s also at his most ambitious in the first scene, stalking international man of mystery George Woodhouse (Fassbender) through London’s alleys and nightclubs like it was Goodfellas‘ Copacabana. George’s contact, Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgård), delivers the bad news: someone on his team, which includes George’s wife Kathryn (Blanchett), is a mole. The traitor, whomever they may be, stole a mass-murdering MacGuffin known as “Severus.” Even worse, Meacham’s marriage is on the rocks. Join the club—everyone in Black Bag is one step away from couples counseling. 

Since the lockdown thriller Kimi, Soderbergh’s partnership with Koepp has yielded some of the most surprising delights of the director’s lengthy filmography. Connecting over a shared interest in surveillance and genre play, the pair brought refined originality to the ghostly POV of Presence earlier this year. They crafted a haunted house story about parents’ tenuous guardianship over their children, all told from the specter’s perspective. Black Bag lacks such an ambitious visual conceit, but trades swooping camera movements for a cast and script bursting with charm. 

Fassbender provides a firm foundation for his co-stars to bounce off of. Offering another spin on the graceful precision of The Killer and Prometheus, the actor is a walking polygraph test, scanning his friends and lover for truth. Koepp’s script doesn’t hide his or his wife’s aims. He detests liars; she values loyalty above all else. While he puts forward an unflappable mug and an evasiveness as suffocating as his turtleneck, Blanchett moves around him with feline acuity. This friction takes its toll on George following a disastrous dinner party with their couple friends: Freddie (Tom Burke) and his May-December girlfriend Clarissa (Industry‘s Marisa Abela), and Col. James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page) and Dr. Zoe Vaugn (Naomie Harris), the work psychiatrist whom they are all required to see. The evening ends spectacularly with George introducing a prodding icebreaker and some dosed chana masala that pushes Clarissa, a flirtatious computer analyst, to the brink. The scene exemplifies Black Bag‘s unexpected sense of humor, which Koepp deploys with aplomb.

Seemingly, every major director dreams of directing a James Bond movie. Spielberg had Indiana Jones; Nolan had Tenet‘s Protagonist. For the Ocean’s 11 and Logan Lucky director, no stranger to capers and heists, it is George Woodhouse—though a supporting turn from Pierce Brosnan as the agency’s M figure provides some supporting authenticity. Black Bag maintains a heightened tone far from the Slow Horses of Sloughhouse. The tech is futuristic, and the spies are superhuman in their competence. However, Soderbergh reduces it all to a question of trust. The surveillance apparatus that George navigates to keep tabs on his wife is less about finding her guilty as the mole and more about protecting her from danger, as the couples around them find out that espionage and marriage make strange bedfellows. 

For all the Mr. And Mrs. Smith-coded spy games, the film boils down to a simple question: How do you establish trust in a marriage when you can’t tell your partner everything? The question gives these characters a grounded place to return to as the spycraft spins out of control. In her meetings with Dr. Zoe, Kathryn can complain about superiors holding her back, calling her marriage a liability, and chastising her with the oft-repeated criticism, “She can’t have it all.” It might be a little on the nose, but the therapist cheat code offers a counterweight to George’s walking lie detector, allowing the audience to see these characters from different sides instead of simply how George sees them. The approach also creates sexual tension to balance the suspense, giving this seemingly slight thriller a depth of emotion that will, like many of Soderbergh’s heists, be even more enjoyable upon rewatch. 

The movie’s cloistered performances and style, bouncing from diffuse amber hues that Soderbergh perfected on his HBO miniseries Full Circle to the harsh fluorescents of the agency offices, create a sexually repressive atmosphere that makes the interplay even more alluring. Soderbergh teases out the mole through an indelible game of Werewolf, but may go too far to match George’s energy. Woodhouse may be the personification of surveillance, but he’s too stylish for Soderbergh to fully avoid any flourishes. It leads to a movie that remains a trifle in the director’s extensive filmography. For better or worse, the director tucks Black Bag away so cleanly that it’s easy to forget what a good time it is.

Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writer: David Koepp
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, Pierce Brosnan
Release Date: March 14, 2025

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