Anna (2019)

Anna (2019) – Full Plot, Cast & Ending Explained

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The movie “Anna”, is a French action-thriller movie, released in 2019. It was directed by the French producer, director, and screenwriter Luc Besson, who also wrote and directed the blockbuster movie Lucy, among many well-appreciated movies. The main stars of the movie are Sasha Luss playing Anna, Luke Evans playing Alex, Cillian Murphy playing Lenny Miller, Helen Mirren playing Olga, Eric Godon playing Vassiliev, besides many more.

Introduction to the movie in Moscow (the year 1985)

The movie begins in the city of Moscow in the year 1985, where the US spy agency CIA has some agents working for their country. But one day, each one of them is captured by the Russian spy agency KGB when the identities of these agents are exposed. All of them are held in different parts of the city, one by one, and taken into custody.

A lady CIA agent reaches her embassy, and when she is waiting outside her office, a Vehicle crashes into her car, but she survives. She is brought directly to the KGB head, named Vassiliev, who asks the lady if she can pass on their message to her seniors in the US, to which the lady says yes.

At the CIA headquarters, agent Leonard Miller gets a parcel in the office. When the parcel is opened, everyone is shocked to find the lady agent’s severed head in the parcel.

The movie fast forwards to five years later, in 1990

Next, the movie shows a scene in Moscow, five years later in 1990, where a fashion recruiter is looking for a model while passing through a local market. He notices and stops at a stall of a beautiful girl, Anna Poliatova, who is a small vendor selling Russian dolls.

She talks in Russian, but the recruiter wants to converse in English. To his surprise, the girl tells him that she can communicate in English, French, Chinese, or Japanese. The recruiter tells her that he is looking for a beautiful and talented girl who can become a fashion model in Paris, and asks whether she would be interested.

She hesitates at first, as she says that she is studying and can’t spare time for this, and besides, knows nothing about modeling. But after the recruiter convinces her regarding facilities, like taking care of her training and all the expenses, she agrees.

A travels to Paris for modeling assignments

She is brought to Paris and groomed to take part in modeling gigs. She is provided accommodation too, where she meets another model, Maud, who is friendly towards her.

While at a party, she is introduced to a man, Oleg, who is a partner in the firm and who seems to be impressed by her. Oleg invites her to his private dinner party, which she accepts, and that is the time when they fall into a relationship for over two months.

One day, she complains to Oleg that she doesn’t know much about him and that she feels skeptical about moving forward with him. Oleg tells her that he has done everything to be truthful to her and even admits in conversation with her that he supplies arms to rebels in countries like Syria, Lebanon, Chechnya, etc. She appreciates the gesture of Oleg confiding in her, which, as per her, proves Oleg’s loyalty to her.

Anna goes into the bathroom and takes out some wire from beneath her gown. She comes back with a gun and shoots Oleg point-blank, killing him on the spot.

The movie goes to three years flashback (1987)

The movie again goes back three years earlier, in 1987, when we see the main lead girl stuck in a bad relationship with her abusive boyfriend, Piotr. Her boyfriend scolds her for not taking proper care of the house and ridicules her for filling up the form as she is trying to enter the Russian navy.

The girl is returning from picking up the groceries when her boyfriend shows up in a car, along with a woman and two men. Piotr compels her to sit in the car so that they can drop her home.

After driving for some time, their car stops at an ATM, and they pull out a person who has been kidnapped by them. They force him to reveal his ATM pin, but he keeps buying time and provides them with wrong Pins one after the other.

Suddenly, the local police turn up there and ask them to surrender. Piotr’s friend fires on the police, but the police fire back, killing one of his friends. She knocks the woman unconscious inside the car.

Piotr and his friend rush to their car along with her, and they escape from the spot. However, the police keep chasing them, and as a result, their car suffers a crash with another car, in which Piotr’s friend dies.

Piotr returns home along with Anna, where an agent Alex, from the KGB, is waiting for them and shoots Piotr dead point blank. Alex offers a job to her in the KGB and informs her that he knows that she has applied to the Navy before and that she has been a cadet in the military academy.

Alex thinks that she has the skills to be an agent of the KGB. Anna cuts her wrist in order to reject the offer. But after Alex assures her that after five years, she will be given freedom, Alex makes her accept his offer. 

The movie showcases the present time again

The movie again comes back to the present time, where the amin lead girl is being questioned by the CIA agent, who introduces himself as Leonard Miller, as we know him from the initial scene of the movie. Leonard says that he is here to help his French counterparts regarding the murder case of Oleg. Miller asks her about her relationship with Oleg and when she saw him last.

Anna replies that she saw him last week only. Leonard produces camera footage of her being there and going away after some time. To that, she replies that she was there since Oleg had asked her to meet up there, but since he never turned up, she left the place. Leonard lets her go, as there doesn’t seem to be anything against her.

The movie again goes six months back

The movie again takes us six months back. Here, Alex takes Anna to Olga, who is a KGB handler. But Olga doesn’t seem to be convinced by her skills and what it takes to be a KGB agent. However, on Alex’s recommendation, Olga gives her a chance to prove herself.

Olga and Alex take her to a restaurant in a car for her mission, where Olga asks her to bring the phone of her target, who is in the restaurant, within five minutes. Olga gives Anna the photograph of her target and a gun.

She gets instructed that her target will be at one of the back tables inside, but doesn’t provide any more information at all. She is told that they will wait for her in the car for five minutes only, and if she does not return within five minutes, they will leave.

When Anna reaches inside, she is able to pin her target, but when she tries to shoot him, she is shocked to find that her gun is not loaded. She is attacked by her target’s men, but she counters them effectively and takes them down one by one with her sharp skills. There are a lot of bloody hand-to-hand fights, besides a severe gunfight between her and the henchmen, but she gets the better of them.

Successful in her initial mission, but in vain

Here, Olga is waiting outside for her and while the allotted five minutes have already passed, but she doesn’t come out. Alex asks her to wait for another minute or so. Here, our main lead girl, after finishing all the henchmen, is looking for her main target, who suddenly attacks her from behind.

After some hand-to-hand fighting, she stabs him repeatedly with a fork until he dies. When she finds his phone and goes outside, she finds that Olga and Alex have already left, as it took her longer than five minutes.

After five hours, she is present in the KGB office with the phone, but Olga is not impressed by her. She gets a feeling that she was set up by Olga, who gave her an empty gun, but Olga replies that she herself should have been more vigilant. Olga reveals to her that during her personal training days, she was dropped in Siberia, and she had to drag a wolf trap on her leg for three days.

Finally, she is inducted into the KGB (The movie still running six months back)

However, Olga takes her into her team and provides her with a place to stay, and gives her 14 days for preparation. Alex calls her to know about her welfare and sends her food too.

Here, we see the same recruiter who introduces Anna to Fashion, talking to his friend about his inability to find pretty girls for his Fashion assignment. His friend advises him to visit the marketplace.

After that, the same story repeats as we saw earlier, but this time, we see it from the other angle. Actually, the vendor girl, whom the recruiter wants to join as a model, is already Anna, the agent.

She is already playing this role under a plan set by Olga to get recruited in Paris as a model. It is all a setup, and that explains she knowing so many languages, as she proclaimed by to the recruiter.

Olga is shown alerting her about the recruiter approaching her in the market. Another agent is deliberately blocking his way to force him to take a particular street, where she is already placed and waiting for him as a vendor girl.

With the movie still at the same time, KGB is calling the shots

From another perspective, every move of hers, like getting groomed as a model or mixing up with other models, is being closely watched by the KGB. It was, in fact, preplanned by the KGB to reach Oleg and finish him through her. The reason is that he was helping Russia’s enemies by selling weapons to them.

Olga calls her and tells her to be on alert since her target, Oleg, is arriving next month. Then the same sequence is repeated, but this time, we see it through another perspective. Anna shoots Oleg point-blank in the room, as already known to us, but here we get to know what happens after that.

After shooting Oleg, she shoots his bodyguard too and drags his bodyguard inside the room. She herself takes the stairs to get out of that place, avoiding elevators. Midway on the stairs, she meets her lookalike, with whom she shares her goggles.

Wearing Anna’s goggles, that Anna lookalike girl approaches the exit gate, while Anna changes her getup in the washroom, and heads towards the server room.

She kills the people working there, takes out the hard disk containing the footage from there, and keeps it. Both Anna and her lookalike take different routes to go out of the building, and what Leonard sees in the camera later on, is actually her lookalike footage of leaving through the exit gate, whileshe isn’t recognized being in a different get-up who exits from another gate.

Instructed to come to Moscow after the successful operation

Our spy girl talks to Olga, who is happy about the smooth operation, and tells her to come to Moscow next week. She goes back to her place, where Alex visits her too, and both get intimate.

Here, the KGB head Vasilliev meets Anna, and gets to know that she wants to leave the KGB after five years. He points a gun at her and tells her that there is only one way to leave the KGB.

Vassiliev offers to play a game of chess with Anna, since she plays chess well, but she says next time. She also gets a new apartment, which she shares with Maud, who loves her company and intimacy.

Continuing her assignments as a model, side by side, she takes the hit jobs too, whenever Olga orders her. She starts to have an affair with Alex, while Maud is also in a relationship with her.

In Milan, Olga sends her for an assignment to get the keys and documents from a German diplomat. She is also asked to bring the diplomat’s finger, so that they can open the briefcase with his fingerprints. As per Olga, this diplomat handles all the illegal money from the Middle East, and all the efforts to buy him have been unsuccessful. However, the diplomat is fond of beautiful girls, and they want to cash in on his weakness.

Olga sends her as a honey trap and arranges a gun in the bathroom. She finishes his bodyguard and comes back with the documents, but Olga is not happy with the fact that she was inside there for a full twelve minutes. It was supposed to be shorter than that, but Anna says he was not cooperating and therefore the delay.

She comes back, but only with the briefcase, and hence, Olga wants her to bring back the diplomat’s finger too, as without his fingerprint, they can’t open his briefcase.

Olga asks her to get back her watch, which Anna has forgotten there in a hurry, as they don’t want to leave a trace there. Anna goes back to his room, and after some time comes back with his finger and her watch, but is disturbed.

Vasilliev gets killed by her

Olga allows her to go for a break for a week to rejuvenate herself. She goes to Hawaii with Maud to enjoy her vacation there. After the vacations are over, Olga meets her, refreshed and rejuvenated asks her to get back to work.

She continues her hit job, along with her routine modelling gigs. She is being given various assignments to finish the enemies, who are working against the interests of Moscow. Olga tells her that she has done good work all year, and so the boss wants to see her and tells her to come to Moscow next week.

Vasilliev meets her at the game of chess and tells her that Olga has recommended her for an award. Vasilliev asks her whether she deserves this award. Anna takes a gun from under the table and shoots Vasiliev in the head.

The movie again goes into flashback to reveal more

The movie again goes into a six-month flashback to the same scene when she went to get the German diplomat’s documents and his finger. As per the earlier scene, she shoots both the diplomat and his bodyguard.

But the reality is that the gun in the bathroom has already been emptied by a CIA team, which is present there and supervised by CIA agent Leonard Miller. After she comes out of the bathroom, she is held by the CIA and Leonard Miller. When Anna asks about how Leonard recognized her, Leonard tells her that he got her by the way she holds her bag in a particular style.

Leonard wants to cut a deal with her in five minutes, as he knows that the KGB agents will come looking for her if she doesn’t return soon. Miller offers her a deal of working for the CIA for three years, and they shall set her free afterwards, unlike the KGB.

She insists on working only for a year and a safe passage to Hawaii with full protection. The deal is done in these twelve minutes only, regarding which Olga complained to Anna in an earlier scene, about her coming back late.

The movie goes back to the same diplomat scene

The scene is repeated again to show what actually happened there. When Olga sends her back to the room, the CIA is also monitoring through cameras, and they see Anna coming back. She asks for the diplomat’s finger, which she has to cut herself only, in order to get that trademark special KGB cut, and Leonard allows her to do so.

On returning with the finger, she goes on vacation to Hawaii with Olga’s permission. But now, some more scenes emerge as compared to the earlier ones.

Here in Hawaii, Leonard is also present, who tellsher that he is here to protect her personally, since he has promised her protection and safe passage. Leonard assures her that she will see better days, and he will make sure that she gets what she deserves after so much trouble.

Besides that, dinner, which he himself promised to Anna earlier, is also due from him. Here, she is being watched by Olga, as she calls Anna during the vacations too.

Anna understands that she will probably not be able to meet Leonard Miller for dinner in the open, so she goes to Leonard’s at night to spend time with him.

Leonard comes to her with another proposal. He tells her that she has to finish the KGB head Vasilliev, as he was responsible for the worsened relations between the CIA and the KGB, which were more or less fine before his joining in KGB. He informs her that Vasilliev gave the orders for the execution of nine agents of the CIA, in a single day, just five years ago.

Leonard tells her that, as per his talk with the CIA bosses, she will be free after doing this job, which, in that case, would be much earlier than the time she was expected to get free, as per their earlier deal. she agrees to this.

The next scene shows her opening the parcel containing the gun in a room, by which she kills Vassilliev. She comes out of the room, where Alex is waiting to accompany her towards Vasiliev’s room. The same scene of Anna playing a game of chess with Vassiliev is repeated when she shoots him in the head.

The movie comes back to the present

Now the movie is in the present, and the further story is that as soon as she finishes Vassilliev, she sedates Alex, who is also present there. She puts a disc in Vasilliev’s laptop to copy data from there. Alex regains his consciousness and presses the alarm button. She has a bloody fight with the guards positioned outside, but she manages to fight them out.

Leonard is waiting outside to fetch her, pretending to be from the embassy, but the alarm is raised in the building. The guard tells him to move away, and so Leonard is forced to go away from there without her, which makes him anxious about her welfare. He even visits her flat in Paris and directs her friend Maud to inform him, in case se visits her flat.

Here, in CIA headquarters, Leonard is being congratulated by his colleagues for the successful operation of finishing KGB head Vassiliev. But Leonard is anxious about Anna’s welfare, who is nowhere to be seen.

Leonard asks his colleagues about any clues about Anna, and they comprehend that she may probably be dead by now. Just then, Leonard gets a message from her, in which she asks him to meet her in a park in Paris on the 14th of that month, which makes him happy.

Leonard and Alex have a face-off

Leonard reaches the park and finds Alex also there. KGB is watching the proceedings, and so is the CIA. Leonard tells the CIA that KGB agent Alex is present there, whereas Olga informs Alex that CIA agent Leonard is present there. Both the CIA and the KGB have their agents physically present there in the park.

While the agents from both sides move towards the place, Leonard stops his men as Anna is seen approaching them. She arrives there and, while she kisses both Leonard and Alex, she tells both Alex and Miller that she is done with both of them.

She says that she is fed up with her identity and doesn’t know whether she is a daughter, a girlfriend, a Russian spy, a model, or an American spy. She says that she can’t take it anymore.

She returns the pen drive containing sensitive KGB data to Alex, which she had taken from Vasilliev’s laptop. She also returns the hard drive containing the sensitive CIA data, which she had copied from Leonard’s briefcase when he had visited her, which is not shown in an earlier scene.

Getting emotional, she refers to them as being, “The only family that she had is on this table” and bids them goodbye. Olga is shown getting furious with this, and after directing her men to keep recording,Olga goes out in the park and shoots Anna with her gun, saying that nobody can mess with the KGB. Leonard and Alex point guns at each other on hearing the gunshots, but their respective agents take them away.

The movie goes into flashback again

The movie again goes to a three-month flashback three months, when Anna comes to meet Olga with some information. Olga sends her driver out from the car, and tells her that she knows that the Americans have approached her to spy for them, as she had already seen handcuff marks on her wrists when she came back with that finger of the diplomat.

Olga reveals to her that she knew about Anna lost her watch during that confrontation, in which the CIA arrested her for a brief period. Being emotionally charged, she says that she is like her daughter, and what she knows about her now will remain a secret between her only. But Olga surprises her when she tells her that she should continue to spy for the CIA and report to her about their every move.

Anna agrees, and thus she becomes a triple agent. First with the KGB, then with the CIA, and then again an agent for the KGB, spying back on the CIA. She starts to bring the information from the CIA to her.

When CIA agent Leonard Miller had asked her to kill Vasilliev, she passed that information to Olga. Olga tells her to do whatever she says to her and promises to set her free afterwards. The scene when she is fighting the guards, after killing Vasilliev, is again shown, where she gets out of that place, and Olga is watching and waiting outside in her car.

The movie resurfaces to the present, with she being taken away

Again, both Miller and Alex watch her body being taken out of the park, from a distance through their binoculars.

Here, in naother shot, she passes through a drainage, and completely changes her outfit and her getup. She moves out of the tunnel as a free person, and Olga is seen taking charge as the head of the KGB.

The final revelation is shown in the end

Actually, all this was set up by Olga only, as per her promise to her. The parcel containing the gun, whichshe is shown to open in the room, and with which she kills Vasilliev, is actually arranged for her by Olga only.

A safe passage for Anna through the tunnel, and the fake shooting of Anna by Olga, is all planned by Olga herself. This was to show the world that Anna is dead, so that she is made to escape.

In the last scene, when Olga opens her system, she gets a video message from Anna, where Anna tells her that she has recorded the conversation between them in the car.

The conversation in which Olga has given her approval to Anna to kill Vasilliev. In the conversation in which she tells Anna to use the gun, the Americans are going to provide that for her to kill Vasilliev.

Olga wanted to get Vasilliev killed, as she wanted to take his place, as she is fed up with the male dominance in the spy world. She lets Olga know that if she ever tries to fix her, she will leak the same to the KGB.

She thanks Olga for training her well and showing her how to protect herself. Olga smiles, and while calling her bitch in appreciation, deletes the video message and all the data of her from KGB forever, so that Anna is free, and the movie ends there.

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