Anna is a film about a woman who is not allowed to be a woman. That is the whole engine of Luc Besson’s 2019 action thriller, and it works. Sasha Luss plays the title character as a young Russian woman trapped in a domestic nightmare, and the movie spends its first half building her up as a victim before it spends the second half turning her into a killing machine. The trick is that the machine is not what she becomes — the machine is the only way she survives.
Besson wrote and directed the film, and he has packed it full of the kind of kinetic set pieces that made his name in the 1990s. Anna is a fashion model by day and a government assassin by night, and the film keeps that split in full view. The result is a story that feels both morally loose and emotionally exact, a strange combination that mostly holds.
Trailer, via Anna Movie.
The Domestic Prison
The film opens in 1990, and Anna is a young woman living in a small apartment in Russia. Her father beats her, and she has no way out. A KGB agent named Alex (Luke Evans) sees her suffering and recruits her as a field agent. After a year of training, she is told that she will work for four more years under a senior handler named Olga (Helen Mirren), after which she will be discharged and free to start over.
That promise is the entire plot. The film is about a woman who is told she will be free in five years, and it spends the rest of its runtime watching that promise collapse.
The Slow Turn
Anna’s handler is Olga, a woman who treats her with a kind of maternal cruelty. Olga knows Anna’s situation and uses it to keep her compliant. The film does not make this a heroic relationship. It makes it a contract, and it makes clear that the contract is broken the moment the Soviet Union falls.
Vassiliev, the director of the newly renamed SVR-RF, refuses to honor the original agreement. He believes that the only path to retirement is death. Anna, having spent five years in the agency, is now trapped. She takes on a new identity as a fashion model in Paris, and she starts a professional relationship with another model named Maude (Lera Abova), with Olga’s permission.
The relationship is a cover, and the film treats it with a strange tenderness. Anna is not a lesbian. She is a woman pretending to be one because it is the easiest way to avoid suspicion. The film does not pretend that this is freedom. It pretends that it is a kind of discipline, and that discipline is what makes her a better agent.
The CIA Deal
When the CIA uncovers her true identity, Anna agrees to work for them as a double agent. Her handler is Agent Leonard Miller (Cillian Murphy), and he offers her political asylum and a new life in Hawaii. The trade is simple: assassinate Vassiliev, the anti-American agent who refuses to honor the agreement, and the CIA believes that whoever succeeds him will improve U.S.-Russian relations.
Anna kills Vassiliev while the two play a game of chess, and she proceeds to shoot her way out of the Lubyanka Building. The escape sequence is the film’s high point, and it is where Luss gets to show off her physicality. She is not a trained actress in the classical sense. She moves like a dancer and a fighter, and the film uses that to its advantage.
After the escape, Anna arranges a meeting with both Alex and Miller. She returns information to each of them, but she insinuates that a copy has been kept and will be released if anything happens to her. Alex tells her that the information will be stale and worthless in six months, but Anna responds that six months of freedom was more than she had ever experienced before.
The Cast and the Style
Sasha Luss carries the film. She is a model by trade, and her presence is the reason the movie works as a visual object. She is tall, thin, and beautiful, and the film does not hide that. But she is also a fighter, and she moves through the action sequences with a fluidity that most actors cannot match.
Luke Evans plays Alex with a kind of old-school charm. He is the one who recruits Anna, and he is the one who tells her that she can be free. His character is a classic Besson figure: a romantic rogue who operates outside the rules. Cillian Murphy plays Miller as a colder, more methodical figure. Helen Mirren plays Olga with a kind of brittle authority. The film gives her a line that sums up its entire moral posture: “Never make the weapon the target.”
The Problem
The problem with Anna is not the action. The action is fine. The problem is the logic. The film asks you to believe that a young woman can be trained as an assassin in a year, that she can maintain a cover identity for years, and that she can take on the CIA, the SVR-RF, and a whole network of handlers without ever being caught. That is a lot to swallow.
The film does not try to make it plausible. It tries to make it exciting, and it mostly succeeds. The shootouts are well-choreographed, and the stunt work is impressive. But the story is a series of coincidences held together with duct tape. Anna survives because the script says she survives, not because the story earns it.
The Verdict
Anna is a film about a woman who is not allowed to be a woman, and it treats that with a seriousness that most action thrillers do not. The film is morally loose — it is a story about a woman who kills people for a living — but it is also emotionally precise. The scenes between Anna and Alex, and between Anna and Maude, land because the film is willing to treat her as a person first and a weapon second.
It is not a great film. It is a competent one, with a lead performance that elevates it and a script that sometimes buries it. The action is fun, the casting is strong, and the themes are interesting. But the plot is a mess, and the ending is a shrug. It is a movie you can watch and enjoy, but you will not remember it for long.
Anna is a film that knows exactly what it wants to do and does it well, even when the logic falls apart. It is a movie about a woman who is a weapon, and it is a movie that is not afraid to show her as a person. That is a rare thing, and it is worth seeing for that reason alone.
“Never make the weapon the target.”
The film is not a masterpiece. It is a Besson film, and Besson films are not known for subtlety. But this one has a center. Anna has a center, and Luss gives her one. The film is worth your time.
Key Facts Box
– Runtime: 119 minutes
– Director: Luc Besson
– Writer: Luc Besson
– Genres: Action, Adventure, Thriller
– Tagline: “Never make the weapon the target”
– Cast: Sasha Luss, Helen Mirren, Luke Evans, Cillian Murphy
– Release: 21 June 2019 (U.S.); 10 July 2019 (France)
– Budget: $30 million
– Box office: $31 million
Anna is a film about a woman who is not allowed to be a woman. It is a film about a woman who becomes a weapon to escape that fate. It is a film about a woman who is both beautiful and deadly, and it is a film that wants you to watch both sides of her. It is a film that is not subtle, and it is a film that is not ashamed of its excesses.
It is a film that is worth seeing, even if it is not a great film. It is a film that is better than its reputation, and it is a film that deserves to be remembered for what it does well — not for what it fails to do. Anna is a film about a woman who is not allowed to be a woman, and it is a film that refuses to let her be one. That is a rare thing, and it is worth celebrating.
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