Wasp Network
netflixLavishly shot and with such attention paid to its period setting its impossible not admire Olivier Assayas’ eye for detail here, the production design (by François-Renaud Labarthe) is nothing short of fantastic and its evident from the outset that the director has a keen interest in the time period. He’s always been a director with high standards and that certainly remains the case here. The participation of the Cuban government also proves useful and certainly adds weight to the accuracy of this portrayal of real-life events.
The acting talent on display is formidable, Edgar Ramirez is excellent in the lead here and his charismatic performance as a Cuban spy is definitely one of the highlights, its more akin to his turn in Carlos and certainly proves to be a return to form for the actor. Penelope Cruz is also on excellent form and certainly delivers as a conflicted wife trying to rationalise her love for her country with her love for her husband.
It’s unfortunate then that the rest of the cast just aren’t given enough to do with their characters, Gael Garcia Bernal’s pivotal character isn’t introduced until nearly halfway through and we spend too little time with him to really allow his talent to shine through. The same can be said of the incredibly talented Wagner Moura and Anna De Armas, they are great when they are on the screen but there isn’t enough time spent with them and it feels to odd to relegate such talent to (in the case of Armas) little more than bit parts.
A wasted cast isn’t the only problem though and Netflix may not prove to be the best home for a film that demands this much attention. The narrative jumps around in time a lot and without the full attention of its audience it would be easy to lose track of what’s going on here. It’s difficult not to think this would be better suited to a darkened cinema screen with little or no distractions as opposed to armchair viewing with a mobile device within all too easy reach.
All that being said it’s evident that the story being told would have been better suited to a mini-series or even two films. Wasp Network is so dense and tries to cover so much within in its running time that whole swathes of story feel rushed. That’s not to say the film is ever boring, for an attentive audience there is a lot to like here. Whilst the pace may be slow it certainly tells a fascinating story that will certainly be eye opening to people without knowledge of the time period.
Unfortunately, though the Wasp Network doesn’t land its ending. The build-up that demands so much patience doesn’t have a particularly dramatic pay off, this may well be down to its origins as a true story but whatever the reason for it the film certainly goes out with whimper and not a bang. Wasp Network is a long way from a bad film but with the talent involved both in front of and behind the camera it certainly doesn’t meet expectations. This had all the ingredients to be one of the year’s very best films (or indeed series) and based on that it has to rank as something of a disappointment.
