Black Bag’s committed spies
In Steven Soderbergh’s latest movie, two MI6 agents have the audacity to put their marriage first.
“Not everyone aspires to your flagrant monogamy,” Philip Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgård) says a bit sarcastically to his colleague George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) in the opening scene of Black Bag (directed by Steven Soderbergh). The two men are discussing Philip’s infidelity, which has put his marriage in jeopardy. “I just wish it wasn’t so fucking easy to cheat. For us,” Philip complains. The “us” refers to their shared profession as British intelligence officers, a job in which lying, subterfuge, and moral ambiguity are less ethical dilemmas than professional skills.
The two men are discussing marriage because Philip has just handed George a list of names of other MI6 agents who are possible suspects in a devastating security leak of a top-secret computer code that can override nuclear safety protocols. George’s wife, Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), is on the list. George is the agency’s top internal security expert, with a reputation for sniffing out even the smallest of lies and remaining committed to truth even at great personal cost. “I hate liars,” he explains to a younger colleague when she learns the legendary story of how he exposed his own father, also a security agent, for infidelity and gross misconduct. But everyone knows George is unwaveringly devoted to Kathryn, and no one is sure how he will respond if she turns out to be the mole.
This is ostensibly the tension of the film: two spies who spend their lives deceiving others and uncovering deception, forced to bring their professional lives into the domestic realm. But the real tension is monogamy itself. Single-minded devotion to anything but the mission is surely a liability, and Kathryn and George’s “flagrant monogamy” is seen as a professional and personal weakness.
