The Spy Who Dumped Me

An enjoyable and frequently amusing action comedy, carried by the ever-reliable Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon.  It won’t change your life, but it’s a fun and frothy couple of hours.

Premise:  Audrey (Mila Kunis) finds herself unwittingly caught up in international espionage when she learns that her ex-boyfriend Drew (Justin Theroux) was actually a CIA agent, and that he hid secret information in her apartment.  Soon she and her best friend Morgan (Kate McKinnon) find themselves being chased across Europe by assassins as they attempt to complete Drew’s mission.

Review:

Mila Kunis has a good track record of appearing in reliably amusing comedies, from Forgetting Sarah Marshall to Bad Moms, and in her latest comedy outing, she teams up with Saturday Night Live veteran Kate McKinnon, who is still probably best known film-wise for playing Dr Jillian Holtzmann in 2016’s reboot of Ghostbusters.  In The Spy Who Dumped Me, Kunis plays the lead – an everywoman who finds herself lacking direction in her mid-thirties, after being dumped by her boyfriend by text message – while McKinnon lets rip in the wilder, more over-the-top crazy-best-friend role.

Both are very funny and play to their comedy strengths, which is good because this is the kind of comedy that relies more on the improvisational skills of its cast for the laughs, rather than the plot itself.  In fact, the plot is fairly serious in tone, and could have been played as a straightforward thriller with very little adaptation.

“…some may find the juxtaposition between the grounded action & the comedy dialogue a bit jarring…”

This tonal mash-up continues with the action and stunt work too, which gives the film a pretty unique feel.  The action and violence is quite full on, and not played for laughs per se – there’s a brutal shootout in a restaurant, a car chase through Vienna, and a torture scene, none of which would look out of place in a traditional spy thriller.  And the action is fairly bone-crunching and uncompromising, with veteran stunt-coordinator Gary Powell (from the recent Bond and Bourne films, among many others) stepping in as Second Unit Director.  So while the action is interspersed with comedic moments (mainly relating to the characters’ reactions to what is going on around them), the action and storyline itself are strangely grounded and realistic.  Some may find this juxtaposition a bit jarring, but I quite liked the way that the violence felt like it was a genuine thriller with genuine stakes, even if the comedic dialogue kept the tone reasonably light.

The film is carried by Kunis and McKinnon, and in many ways follows the traditional buddy-movie format as the pair’s friendship is tested and ultimately reaffirmed by their trials and tribulations. The rest of the supporting cast is also pretty solid; Justin Theroux strikes the right balance between suave Bond-esque super-spy and slimy ex-boyfriend (he did dump Audrey by text, after all), while Gillian Anderson is a lot of fun as the strait-laced MI6 boss.  Sam Heughan is saddled with the largely thankless role of the mysterious agent who may be a friend or a foe, but he does what he can with it – but Hasan Minhaj makes more of an impression as the comic relief agent who can’t stop name dropping the college he went to.

“…an enjoyable couple of hours watching Kunis & McKinnon riff of each other…”

Ultimately, The Spy Who Dumped Me is not going to change anyone’s life – and in the rankings of 2018’s comedies, I thought Game Night and A Simple Favour were both funnier.  But although The Spy Who Dumped Me wasn’t the funniest film of the year, I had an enjoyable couple of hours watching Kunis and McKinnon riff of each other, and I’d happily watch it again.