An inter­na­tion­al coali­tion of female spies team up in The 355

It seems like just yes­ter­day that the 2018 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val was under­way, two weeks of sun and sand dur­ing which vis­i­tors may have been lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a his­toric pho­to op. I dis­tinct­ly recall see­ing an assem­blage of world-renowned actress­es from afar, pos­ing near the beach in a pub­lic­i­ty-grab­bing accom­pa­ni­ment to what would lat­er be revealed as a big-tick­et sale in the movie market.

Lit­tle did onlook­ers real­ize, this was the first pro­mo­tion for The 355, a spy thriller with an inter­na­tion­al cast of A‑list women includ­ing Jes­si­ca Chas­tain, Lupi­ta Nyong’o, Pene­lope Cruz, and Fan Bing­bing. (Though Mar­i­on Cotil­lard, pic­tured back in 2018, will not be one of them – she part­ed ways with the pro­duc­tion, replaced with Diane Kruger.) Today brings the first trail­er for their crossover block­buster, an ensem­ble espi­onage pic­ture leav­ing James Bond dead in a ditch.

Chas­tain leads as a ​“wild card” CIA agent going rogue on a mis­sion too sen­si­tive to be han­dled by any offi­cial orga­ni­za­tion. She assem­bles a team of oper­a­tives from intel­li­gence agen­cies in Colom­bia (Cruz), Britain (Nyong’o), and Ger­many (Kruger) to get the down low on a mys­te­ri­ous Chi­nese fig­ure (Bing­bing) mon­i­tor­ing this loose alliance with plans of her own. Their mis­sion takes them from daz­zling Paris to the equal­ly-daz­zling Moroc­co to the no-less-daz­zling Shang­hai – in 007 tra­di­tion, daz­zles all around where the back­drops are concerned.

The film assumes a fem­i­nist edge sim­i­lar to that of the recent Ocean’s 8, in which a group of sharp-wit­ted women teamed up to pull off a dar­ing job, and like that film, their alliance will be vital yet uneasy. They may have sol­i­dar­i­ty with­in their gen­der, but everyone’s play­ing both sides against the mid­dle and no one can be trust­ed. (Espe­cial­ly the men, por­trayed by Edgar Ramirez and Sebas­t­ian Stan.) Loy­al­ties will be test­ed, and there may be a betray­al or two in the cards.

Uni­ver­sal plans to put this hope­ful tent­pole in cin­e­mas after the new year, a dar­ing strat­e­gy at a time when the con­tin­ued exis­tence of pub­lic the­atri­cal exhi­bi­tion has nev­er been less cer­tain. As chains con­tin­ue to shut­ter and big-bud­get projects like Dune and No Time to Die con­tin­ue to shuf­fle them­selves down the release cal­en­dar, that date may have to move as well, but at least we know that the whole thing’s in the can for when­ev­er the peo­ple of Earth are ready to return to the movies.

The 355 is set for release in the US and UK on 15 Jan­u­ary, 2021.