Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Wasp Network’ on Netflix, a Dense, Muddled True-Story Spy Saga

After making the late-2019 festival circuit, Wasp Network was snatched up by Netflix, which possibly thought the film would be best watched at home so viewers can press pause and consult Wikipedia for clarification. The film — from acclaimed director Olivier Assayas (Clean, Clouds of Sils Maria, Personal Shopper) — dramatizes the real-life spy games of Cuban-Americans who infiltrated anti-Castro organizations in the late 1980s and early ’90s. And of course, inevitably, as spy games so often tend to be, these were intricate and convoluted affairs. But Assayas, with a stellar cast up front, should be up to the task of rendering a twisty saga crystalline, right?

WASP NETWORK: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Rene Gonzalez (Edgar Ramirez, reteaming with Assayas after 2010 TV series/film Carlos) rips the handset from the radio, hops in a plane and flies from Havana to Miami, leaving behind everything he has — a solid pilot job, his family and his credibility as a loyal Cuban national, even though he was born in Chicago. He abruptly leaves behind his wife, Olga (Penelope Cruz), to raise their daughter in a traitor’s disgraceful wake. He begins working for Jose Basulto (Leonardo Sbaraglia), a pro-democracy, anti-communist “humanitarian militant” who assists Cuban emigrants desperately rafting from their economically ravaged home to the U.S., and generally undermines Fidel Castro’s crumbling regime. It’s 1990.

Back in Cuba, another pilot, Juan Pablo Roque (Wagner Moura), dons fins and snorkel and swims through shark-infested waters to Guantanamo Bay. He tells a U.S. military honcho he’s defecting; he’s rewarded with a Big Mac and a flight to Miami. He joins Basulto’s crusade, and settles in by marrying Ana (Ana de Armas) — but he doesn’t tell her how, exactly, they can afford an extravagant wedding and lifestyle. We know, though: he’s also an informant for the FBI, and Rene soon is, too, and not just for the money. Meanwhile, back in Cuba, Olga struggles and struggles, working in a tannery, feeling the pinch, tighter than most, of Cuba’s national economic crisis, the result of decades of strict U.S. trade embargoes.

Subtitle: FOUR YEARS EARLIER. Gerardo Hernandez (Gael Garcia Bernal) meets with Cuban military brass. He’ll lead the Wasp Network, a group of spies aiming to infiltrate anti-communist networks like Basulto’s, and I’ll let you watch the movie or put two and two together here. A montage pieces together the deeds of the Wasp Network, which thwarted numerous terrorist efforts to undermine Cuba’s economy and regime — some of them likely backed by the CIA. Then another subtitle: PRESENT DAY, which is actually 1995. You following all this? Are you going to keep following it?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Assayas’ Carlos  is an easy comparison, being a true story that surely functions better as a relatively sprawling multi-part TV series than a condensed movie — just as Wasp Network likely would.

Performance Worth Watching: Talent-on-the-rise de Armas is from similar professional lineage as Cruz: schooled in Madrid, Spanish TV, Hollywood breakthrough and, probably, if you’re a betting type, some Oscar noms for de Armas. Now deep sigh with me: they don’t share any scenes in Wasp Network. And don’t expect much from de Armas; her role is underwritten, although she makes the best of her few scenes. Cruz, however, is a force, a ray of light pushing through an overcast smudge of a movie; she emphatically captures the clash of family and patriotism within her character, which is easily the film’s strongest emotional appeal.

Memorable Dialogue: Basulto sells Rene on his quest for democracy: “I used to be a violent man. Trained by the U.S. as a terrorist. My hero was John Wayne. But not anymore. Now I’m a kind of Jedi. Like Luke Skywalker. The Force is with us.”

Sex and Skin: A nookie scene features a topless de Armas.

Our Take: You’re welcome for the above distillation of the plot of Wasp Network, which ties in multiple players in tangled spy skeins whose complications sap the movie of its intrigue. We don’t sense the tension in individual or overarching situations; we’re too busy sorting through characters, times, dates, places, political context. It’s a two-hour movie that sets its hook at the 90-minute mark, almost relying on its considerable visual and technical dexterity to keep us from tuning out. When the story finally comes into focus, the purpose of scenes from an hour earlier click into place, but the rewards are underwhelming.

Without Cruz’s controlled, but fiery presence, the film would be hollow. She makes sure Olga is more than just a token wife torn between loyalties. Her assured characterization cuts through the muddled plotting like a laser, just when the movie needs it; it’s as if Assayas times her scenes to reel us back from the precipice of dwindling interest. The film is a muddled ensemble piece almost begging for Cruz to take the central role.

Focusing on Rene and Olga’s story would have resulted in a more conventional film, but also a more effective one. It begins and ends with their rocky, but loving relationship, but in between, it’s a meandering Family Circus comic-strip dotted line through half-realized characters and corollaries. The Juan Pablo episode eats up a lot of time in the middle of the film with little payoff, and Bernal’s character is reduced to a superficial plot device. Assayas leans heavily on a pair of uptempo, tonally incongruent montages with explicatory voiceovers. When all else fails, he posits two characters at a restaurant table for plot debriefings — and all else seems to fail quite often.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Cruz can’t save Wasp Network from being a disappointingly muddled spy saga.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Wasp Network on Netflix