The Spy Who Dumped Me: Film Review

The Spy Who Dumped Me: Film Review

Cast: Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon, Justin Theroux, Gillian Anderson, Sam Heughan
Director: Susanna Fogel

Mixing a bit of raunchy comedy with some spy action and bundling it up in the usual Kate McKinnon schtick actually works reasonably well for The Spy Who Dumped Me.

Kunis stars as Audrey, newly 30 and dumped by her boyf Drew (Theroux, in casting mode for a Bond style role). After a night out with her BFF Morgan (McKinnon, once again killing it with ad-libs and goofiness), Audrey finds herself thrust into the middle of a conspiracy and on the run in Europe.

On her tail is Sebastian (Outlander's Sam Heughan, a little stiff here) who may or may not be trustworthy and a group of eastern European agents...

The Spy Who Dumped Me has some funny touches.

Its opening gambit mixes some pretty impressive spy shenanigans with Theroux taking centre stage before it collapses into a style over substance type global jaunt that hops around with nary a concern for its admittedly flimsy central plot.

It's grating because the spy elements of the film feel secondary to everything else, and given this is the hook the comedy's predicated on, as the film propels itself through its nearly two hour run time, these are the parts which stand out more - and certainly in the beats of the finale, degrees of apathy have set in.

Fortunately, the whole thing is genuinely saved by both Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon.

Their BFF-ship is joyous to behold and the bond of sisterhood is there for all to see, rather than being spun out in an empowerment message aimed at cloying sentiment (though parts of sentiment creep in at the end.)

It works because of the genuine laughs proffered by the duo, whether it's McKinnon spitballing under Fogel's direction or Kunis playing her patented mix of naive and naughty as the stay-at-home who's starting to come out of her shell.

Throughout The Spy Who Dumped Me, this is the one takeaway - when a female comedy is done right, it's fresh, bright and breezy. And thrust into a genre that's primarily been a man's world for far too long, Kunis and McKinnon soar and show no signs of fatigue. Whilst there's no hint there could be a sequel (other than a post credits scene which hints at it) it has to be said that a second outing with this pair would be no bad thing - it's just if they do team up again, more work needs to be done with the spy shenanigans, because given the right script, these could be spies to love.