Wasp Net­work – first look review

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from read­ing John Le Car­ré nov­els over the years, it’s that spy­ing is a real­ly con­fus­ing busi­ness. And the ones left stand­ing are usu­al­ly those who are able to untan­gle as much of that con­fu­sion as pos­si­ble, and dash in with their killer play. Wasp Net­work sees the great French direc­tor Olivi­er Assayas take his time hon­oured shot at the spy movie, and this one can­ni­ly com­bines dense polit­i­cal intrigue with an oblique but wel­come touch of clas­sic Hol­ly­wood romanticism.

Cuba, the ear­ly ​‘90s: Edgar Ramirez’ com­mer­cial pilot René González kiss­es his wife, Olga (Pene­lope Cruz), good­bye and hugs his daugh­ter. Every­thing appears com­plete­ly nor­mal as he heads out for a day’s fly­ing. It soon tran­spires that, for three months, he had been hatch­ing his escape plan from Cuba with a view to defect­ing to the USA (he was born in Chica­go so has the right to remain). Sick of the rationing and hard­scrab­ble pover­ty – a result of the bru­tal trade embar­go imposed by the US against the Cas­tro régime – he has decid­ed to do what he can to fight for democ­ra­cy in Cuba, even if it means aban­don­ing the fam­i­ly he loves.

Lat­er comes Wag­n­er Moura’s Ramón Labañi­no, who takes his chances with shark-infest­ed waters and snorkels across to Guan­tanamo Bay, where he too defects to the US, his sights set on bring­ing down Cas­tro from afar. Much of Ramón and René’s work is in con­nec­tion with Broth­ers to the Res­cue, a right wing non-prof­it out­fit run by Cuban exiles with the aim of guid­ing com­mu­nist refugees to safe­ty as they take to the seas in crum­my rafts. The pair both believe that their work will be short term, as the fall of the Sovi­et Union will inevitably lead to a cri­sis in Cuba as all eco­nom­ic stim­u­lus would fade away.

To include any more details of the plot here would sim­ply take up thou­sands and thou­sands of words, and this is very much the basic set up to just two of the key play­ers in this affair. From this point, Assayas lays out a lat­tice-work of sys­tems and net­works, secret fund­ing chan­nels and coun­teres­pi­onage fac­tions, and total con­cen­tra­tion is para­mount when it comes to keep­ing tabs on the wide cast of play­ers and how all the lit­tle side dra­mas feed in to the main sto­ry­line. Watch­ing this film is a plea­sur­able chal­lenge. Based on Fer­nan­do Morais’ book ​‘The Last Sol­diers Of The Cold War’, the film doesn’t take the shape of an eas­i­ly digestible lin­ear nar­ra­tive – it’s more a web of ideas which are con­nect­ed through sub­tle emo­tion­al undercurrents.

The direc­tion leans towards the cold­ly prac­ti­cal, and there’s lit­tle room for art­ful flour­ish­es. With his more recent films, Assayas often makes a point­ed attempt to siphon out any unnec­es­sary style, whether that’s in the chore­og­ra­phy of scenes, the way actors deliv­er dia­logue or the rhythm of the edit­ing. That terse­ness is also one of Wasp Network’s key strengths, espe­cial­ly when it comes to a riv­et­ing Hitch­cock­ian sequence that involves a young boy agree­ing to bomb three tourist hotels in order to make a fast buck.

As mat­ters become more and more out­ra­geous­ly com­plex, Assayas shifts his focus onto the things these men are fight­ing for. Yet there are no heroes and vil­lains in the film, as the direc­tor makes cer­tain to tell this sto­ry in a way which favours no per­son, no ide­ol­o­gy and no coun­try over the other.