Russian and American espionage has long been catnip for filmmakers, and Hollywood is at it again with Red Sparrow, which reunites everyone’s favourite girl-next-door Jennifer Lawrence with her Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence (no relation) for this stylish spy yarn set in modern day Russia.

Lawrence plays a young ballerina who is recruited to Sparrow School, a Russian intelligence service where she and other men and women are trained in the art of seduction. Upon successful completion of her training she is given her first assignment: seduce the rookie American agent (Edgerton) responsible for turning Russian intelligence operatives into CIA double agents. The two young spies soon find their respective worlds colliding as passion and deception put both their lives and the security of the world at risk.

High stakes and drama aside, Red Sparrow is actually based on a novel by a CIA veteran with knowledge that could only have come from a career spanning 33 years. The resulting film is an intricately detailed and brutal thriller, populated by two ridiculously good looking leads and a suitably stern supporting cast – including Jeremy Irons, Charlotte Rampling and Ciaran Hinds – each affecting a variant on the Russian accent, some better than others.