Respond to these rapid questions in our Anna quiz and we will tell you which Anna character you are. Play it now.
It is possible that if “Anna” had been directed by any other filmmaker, it would have been dismissed as little more than a blatant attempt to copy the offbeat and visually stylish action epics of French filmmaker Luc Besson, an attempt that goes disastrously wrong right from the start and only gets worse as the film progresses. “Anna” was written and directed by Besson himself, and it still comes across as a misguided remake of some of his best-known works. As a result of his previous film, the wildly ambitious sci-fi saga “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” it makes a certain amount of sense that he would want to return to something a little more familiar in order to reestablish his commercial standing. However, even long-time fans of his will find it difficult to muster much enthusiasm for this startlingly sloppy piece of by-the-numbers hack work.
As the film opens in 1990, Anna (Sasha Luss), a beautiful young Russian woman, is selling nesting dolls in a Moscow market when she is spotted by a scout for a French modeling agency and is immediately dispatched to Paris to begin working as a model for them. Shortly after that, she catches the attention of a fellow countryman, a wealthy businessman who is one of the investors in the firm, using the money that he earns from illegally selling weapons to foreign adversaries of the United States and other countries. After a couple of months of flirting, she appears to be on the verge of going to bed with him until she coolly puts a bullet in his head to put an end to the whole thing.
In 2013, Anna was a brilliant but downtrodden young woman living on the fringes of society with an abusive criminal boyfriend and a desperate need to escape her dreadful circumstances. A KGB agent named Alex (Luke Evans) recognizes the value of her combination of beauty, intelligence, and ambition, and he offers her the opportunity to join the organization and work alongside him and his boss, Olga (Helen Mirren, who is clearly using this film as an audition reel for the role of Edna in the inevitable live-action remake of “The Incredibles,” with the promise that she will be free to leave after five years of service.)
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The film is set in 1990, and Anna is still maintaining her image as an up-and-coming model, even going so far as to form an affectionate relationship with a fellow model named Maud (Lera Abova), all the while knocking off the occasional target (usually while wearing something of a fetish nature) and engaging in a secret romance with Alex in her spare time. Lenny Miller (Cillian Murphy), an American CIA agent who wants to use Anna for his own particular ends in order to settle a gruesome score depicted in an otherwise mystifying prologue, eventually discovers her identity and blows the cover off her cover. Anna agrees because she has no choice but to do so. She even begins sleeping with him after a while. But Anna soon grows tired of her entanglements and resorts to cunning, sexuality, and the ability to kill a large number of people while dressed in what appears to be the entire Victoria’s Secret spring collection.
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Some of you who have been around for a while may be thinking that this description of “Anna” sounds eerily similar to “La Femme Nikita,” the 1990 action film that marked Luc Besson’s big international break and marked his major international breakthrough. To the point where it appears as if Besson dug up an early draft of that screenplay and simply shot it with the names of the characters and some of the locations changed, it is eerily similar in so many ways. (This may explain why the story insists on taking place in the 1990s, despite the fact that the technology employed by the characters is almost distractingly anachronistic throughout the novel.) While it would have been interesting if Besson had chosen to rework such well-known material as a way of exploring the shift in gender attitudes in genre filmmaking since the release of “La Femme Nikita,” that would have been an interesting approach (especially given that the film’s release comes on the heels of several allegations of sexual misconduct, including rape, that have been leveled against Besson over the last year or so), the only significant addition here is a distractingly fragmented narrative. This approach adds nothing of value or interest to the proceedings, and it is clear that it has been implemented in an attempt to distract viewers from realizing just how predictable everything has become in the first place.
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For years, I’ve been a devoted follower of Besson’s work, and I’ve embraced his films—yes, even “Valerian”—for their impeccable and distinctive style, the intricately choreographed action sequences, the cheerfully oddball narratives, which are frequently punctuated with moments of welcome wacko humor, and the charismatic performances from the actresses who have played the central characters in the majority of his stories over the years. Surprisingly, virtually none of these elements are on display in this setting. As opposed to the contagious and almost gleeful energy that usually drives his films, Besson appears to be going through the motions, and his work, despite the contributions of such regular collaborators as cinematographer Thierry Arbogast, editor Julien Rey, and composer Eric Serra, is as uninteresting as it can possibly be. Despite the presence of two admittedly standout sequences, Anna’s debut as an assassin takes place in a crowded restaurant, where she ends up using broken plates as lethal weapons, and a montage that juxtaposes her modeling and murdering gigs, the action beats are tepid, and the film as a whole lacks any genuine sense of levity. (Except for the aforementioned montage and an unsettling scene in which Anna exacts revenge on a creepy photographer who appears to be inspired by Terry Richardson, the film has one brilliant idea—the conceit of a cutthroat killer going undercover in the equally cutthroat world of modelling—but does nothing with it. The same can be said for the lead actress, Sasha Luss. She is undeniably beautiful, but she does not bring much else to the table in this film—she certainly does not demonstrate any of the undeniable screen charisma displayed by the likes of Anne Parillaud, Natalie Portman, Millie Jovovich, and Cara Delevingne in their various screen collaborations with Luc Besson.
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Although Besson has made some poor films in the past, he was at least making some kind of discernible effort in mediocre films such as “The Family” and “The Lady.” Anna, on the other hand, is so aimless and listless that it’s hard to believe he was even on set for most of its production. Nothing more than the aforementioned two solid action sequences, some intriguing underwear, and a Helen Mirren performance that is mildly amusing, though it will not take up a significant amount of time on any future Lifetime Achievement highlight reels are on offer from him here. Of course, there will be those who will argue that someone who is still under the shadow of suspicion, as Besson is, should not be permitted to make and release any film in the current political climate. Ironically, if something like this had actually happened to “Anna,” it would have only served to benefit Besson’s career.Also, you must try to play this Anna quiz.
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