E-Paper
Anna is a goofy film that goes nowhere, says Rashid Irani
A model is turned into a KBG assassin. Amid car chases, double crosses and a quasi-lesbian relationship, Luc Besson disappoints again.
For a while in the 1990s, Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element) was hailed as the new wunderkind of French cinema. His career has subsequently nosedived further with each new release. And his latest flick, Anna, is a goofy ride in which style trumps substance completely.
As always with Besson, production design is glossy, high-fashioned and full of panache. The protagonist is in fact a model (Sasha Luss), this time around. She’s lured into the spy trade by the KGB, and turned into a deadly assassin. Then dispatched on a killing spree across Moscow, Milan, Paris and New York. Car chases, double crosses and a quasi-lesbian relationship are thrown in for good measure.
The non-linear development seems designed to exasperate viewers. Mystifyingly, the leggy heroine is first shown to have a vicious streak (at one point she chops off the finger of an intended target), but then shapes up as a do-gooder desperately seeking a life of peace and quiet.
Helen Mirren, as a high-ranking Russian operative, is the only standout in the cast. Incidentally, Luc Besson was tainted by allegations of sexual harassment in the midst of filming. A lamentable mess of a movie, Anna is worth a skip for several reasons.
