14 Comments

I haven't seen this, but it's interesting to think about in comparison to 'Spy' or 'The Spy Who Dumped Me.' In the former, the female protagonist is secretly an excellent field agent who needs to gain self-confidence. The latter is about a normal person who survives dangerous situations through a combination of luck and cleverness. 'The Rhythm Section' seems to land somewhere in between those two poles, and it sounds like its failure/refusal to commit in either direction keeps it from achieving its goal.

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I saw the spy who dumped me...I remember nothing about it except that it was enjoyable enough?

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This seems like a movie where some humor could really go a long way. It sounds like a bummer.

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it's kind of a bummer! which I don't necessarily hate, but...yeah, I was expecting a bit less self-seriousness!

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That's the issue, isn't it, Noah? You can get away with self-seriousness, sort of, if your spy IS capable because that gives us something to watch as the spy wallows in the existential angst of it all (like LA FEMME NIKITA in every one of its forms, or the Bourne movies).

But if your spy is just a regular Jane or Joe, they need to show us SOME talent that doesn't have us thinking "How are you not roadkill?"—either that, or be a comedy where the incompetent amateur keeps succeeding through dumb luck. Or, in the case of THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. television series, having an experienced agent watching their back at all times....

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the spy here is determined and resourceful...like it's not unbelievable as these things go, just the focus on her degradation and misery gets hard to watch...

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Might this be a more realistic vision of actual spies? They aren’t X-men or Hollywood creations. They are probably reasonably athletic ordinary people with cultural and language skills (probably more important than the athleticism) and a cover job to explain their ability to travel abroad. They’ve been trained and might have a specific type of personality, but I doubt they are Hollywood super humans.

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I would say that John Le Carre's works are probably more realistic? those aren't empowerment fantasies at all; the characters tend not to have any particular physical prowess and are mostly just good at lying. Rhythm Section tries to have it both ways, more or less, with mixed results.

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I suspect the training to undergo interrogation is probably more important than any martial arts or weapons training.

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Ah.... Sorry, from your review I assumed she was so sodden and messed up that she wasn't even all that good at it.

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Historically some of the most effective spies have been those deemed unimportant and easily ignored — slaves, servants, tailors, laundresses, street prostitutes and waiters. One of the most significant spies for the USA in Japanese occupied Philippines was a young girl with leprosy. I doubt she had much impressive physical skills, or would make a riveting movie heroine but she carried maps, secret messages important contraband of all kinds to USA military. She spied on military movements mapped mine fields etc. The fear of her disease allowed her to avoid searches and move where others could not. She was intrepid but hardly physically powerful etc. Her life before leprosy was that of a young mother. I think our movie version of spies is bull shit.

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John le Carre aside, movie spies ARE mostly bullshit—they're the Gentleman Adventurer trope with a coat of Whatever Political Issue is Hot paint on top of it if they're men, or they're The Reincarnation of Theda Bara if they're women. Billionaires in movies and books are mostly bullshit, too, because they're not Christian Grey, Bruce Wayne, or Roarke—they're Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Michael Bloomberg, and they're so isolated from everyday concerns that they're almost always sociopaths! But all those characters fulfill a yearning for adventure and romance in their viewers or readers....

Thank you for telling us about this remarkable woman, and how she aided the Americans in the Philippines during WWII. Do you have any books or documentaries about her you could point us to about her life and career as a (genuine) secret agent?

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Her name was Josefina Guerrero. (I can’t believe I left her name out.) I couldn’t figure out how to edit my comment.

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Thank you, I'd wondered why you didn't include her name earlier. I found a link to her story on Military.comhttps://www.military.com/history/woman-leprosy-was-most-important-spy-fight-philippines.html .

As for editing comments? Are you by any chance writing your messages on a smartphone or tablet? I've noticed that Substack for iOS doesn't allow comment editing, at all—you can Share, Hide, or Delete, but that's it. You can edit your own Notes and Posts, though....

Among the many many things Substack needs to fix, comment editing would be a very welcome addition to the iOS UI.

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