Ava (2020) (Review)


 Unceremoniously dumped on video-on-demand platforms, Ava has been left to die a quiet death - but its whole cinematic lifetime has been far from smooth sailing. Quickly consumed by controversy upon its announced due to numerous allegations made against its writer and then-director, Tate Taylor soon stepped in to take over the Jessica Chastain spy thriller. Can something be salvaged of Ava?

After an assignment goes dangerously wrong, a black ops assassin is forced to fight for her own survival when her own organisation turns against her. Co-starring alongside Chastain, John Malkovich, Common, Geena Davis and Colin Farrell, Ava joins the likes of Atomic Blonde, Red Sparrow, Anna and The Rhythm Section that welcomes the women into a genre that, until recently, has been dominated by the men.

Without an original bone in its body, Ava is a by-the-books genre flick that brings nothing remotely new or exciting to the game. An exercise in box-ticking, Ava combines a staggeringly dull plot with some of the laziest character work since the women have come into their own within the genre space. Matthew Newton's tepid screenplay never once inspires any emotion beyond pure tedium, dealing exclusively in cliches that have been ripped from superior assassin stories, emphasising how truly derivative and generic it is.

While the majority of the problems are a result of the poor screenplay, director Tate Taylor fails to inject any sense of invention into the all-important action sequences. Further weakened by distractingly choppy editing and a throbbing soundtrack-score that never relents, it is difficult to find a single creative decision that actually pays off. Even a short runtime of 96 minutes is far too long for a film with so little going on.

Jessica Chastain has proven herself to be a multi-faceted talent but even her performance here lacks spirit - although who could blame her for being dragged down by this inept script. Trying to elevate the one-dimensional titular assassin is a task most actresses would find difficult but Chastain's natural charisma is just about enough to carry this film to the end. She capably handles the physical demands and hints at some character depth, but she can only do so much with so little. As more and more actresses develop their own action vehicles, it is a real shame Chastain couldn't find one worthy of her talents. Her supporting cast is rather useless, too.

As someone who tends to find great enjoyment in this sub-genre, particularly the female-fronted vehicles that have given some of our greatest talents the opportunity to demonstrate their range, it is rather staggering that this landed with such an almighty thud, but it's incredibly challenging to find any sort of entertainment in something so flat. A poor script that presents a woefully-bland storyline and stiffles any sense of directorial creativity or excitement, Ava is a waste of resources that strands no one more so than its lead - Jessica Chastain deserves better!

Summary: Creatively inert and boringly generic, no film should be this bland - particularly a spy-thriller that has Jessica Chastain's talent to hand.