Movie Starcast
The movie “Anna”, is a French action-thriller action 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 get 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 waiting outside her office, a Vehicle crashes into her car, but she survives. She is directly brought 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.
Anna talks in Russian, but the recruiter wants to converse in English. To his surprise, Anna 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 whether she would be interested.
Anna hesitates at first, as she says that she is studying and can’t spare time for this, and besides know nothing about modeling. But after the recruiter convinces her regarding facilities, like taking care of her training and all the expenses, Anna agrees.
Anna travels to Paris for modeling assignments
Anna 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 Anna 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 Anna 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 Anna that he supplies arms to rebels in countries like Syria, Lebanon, Chechnya, etc. Anna appreciates the gesture of Oleg confiding in her, which as per Anna, 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 black, 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 Anna stuck in a bad relationship, with her abusive boyfriend Piotr. Anna’s 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.
Anna 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 wrong Pins one after the other.
Suddenly the local police turn up there and ask them to surrender. Piotr’s friend’s fire on the police, but the police fire back, killing one of his friends. Anna knocks the woman unconscious inside the car. Piotr and his friend rush to their car along with Anna, 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 KGB, is waiting for them and shoots Piotr dead point blank. Alex offers a job to Anna in KGB and informs Anna, 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 anna has the skills, for being an agent of the KGB. Anna cuts her wrist, in order to reject the offer. But after Alex assures Anna, 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 Anna 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 Anna about her relationship with Oleg and when did she saw him last.
Anna replies that she saw him last week only. Leonard produces camera footage of Anna being there and going away after some time. Anna says 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 Anna’s skills, and what it takes to be a KGB agent. However, on Alex’s recommendation, she gives Anna a chance to prove herself.
Olga and Alex, take Anna to a restaurant in a car for her mission, where Olga asks Anna 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.
Anna gets instructed that her target will be at one of the back tables inside and doesn’t provide any more information at all. Anna 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. Anna 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 Anna gets the better of them.
Anna succeeds in her initial mission but in vain
Here, Olga is waiting for Anna while her allotted five minutes have already passed, but Anna doesn’t come out. Alex asks her to wait for another minute or so. Here, Anna, after finishing all the henchmen, is looking for her main target, who suddenly attacks her from behind.
After some hand-to-hand fighting, Anna 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, Anna is present in the KGB office with the phone, but Olga is not impressed by her. Anna feels 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 Anna 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, Anna is inducted into the KGB (The movie still running six months back)
However, Olga takes Anna in her team and provides her a place to stay, and gives her 14 days for preparation. Alex calls Anna 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 see earlier but this time, we see it from the other angle. Actually, the vendor girl Anna, 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 Anna knowing so many languages, as proclaimed by her to the recruiter. Olga is shown alerting Anna, about the recruiter approaching her in the market. Another agent is deliberately blocking his way, to force him to take a particular street, where Anna 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 Anna, like getting groomed as a model or her mixing up with other models, is being closely watched by KGB. It was in fact, preplanned by KGB, to reach to Oleg and finish him through Anna. The freason being that he was helping Russia’s enemies, by selling weapons to them.
Olga calls Anna 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.
Anna after shooting Oleg, shoots his bodyguard too and drags his bodyguard inside the room. Anna 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 towards the exit gate, while Anna changes her getup in the washroom, and heads towards the server room.
Anna kills the people working there, and 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 camera later on, is actually Anna’s lookalike footage of leaving through the exit gate, while Anna isn’t recognized being in different get up who exits from other gate.
Anna is instructed to come to Moscow after the successful operation
Anna talks to Olga, who is happy about the smooth operation, and tells her to come to Moscow next week. Anna 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 KGB after five years. He points a gun on 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 Anna says next time. Anna gets a new apartment, which she shares with Maud, who loves her company and intimacy.
Anna continues her assignments as a model, and 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 Anna for an assignment to get the keys and documents from a German diplomat. Anna 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 of buying him have been unsuccessful. However, the diplomat is fond of beautiful girls and they want to cash on his weakness.
Olga sends Anna as a honey trap, and arranges her a gun in the bathroom. Anna finishes his bodyguard and comes back with the documents, but Olga is not happy with the fact that, she was inside there for full twelve minutes. It was supposed to be shorter than that, but Anna says he was not cooperating and therefore the delay.
Anna comes back, but only with the briefcase, and hence, Olga wants Anna to bring back the diplomat’s finger too, as without his finger print, they can’t open his briefcase. Olga asks Anna to get back her watch also, which Anna has forgot 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 is killed by Anna
Olga allows Anna to go for a break for a week, to rejuvenate herself. Anna goes to Hawaii with Maud, to enjoy her vacations there. After the vacations are over, Olga meets a refreshed Anna, and asks her to get back to work.
Anna 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 the year, and so the boss wants to see her, and tells her to come to Moscow next week.
Vasilliev meets Anna at the game of chess, and tells her that Olga has recommended Anna for an award. Vasilliev asks Anna whether she deserves this award. Anna takes a gun from under the table, and shoots Vasiliev in the head.
The movie again goes to 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 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 Anna that he got her, by the way she holds her bag in a particular style.
Leonard wants to cut a deal with Anna 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 CIA for three years, and they shall set her free afterwards unlike KGB. She insists for 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 earlier scene, about her coming back late.
The movie back to the same diplomat scene
The scene is repeated again, to show what actually happened there. When Olga sends Anna back to room, CIA also was monitoring through cameras, and they see Anna coming back. Anna asks for the diplomat’s finger, which she has to cut herself only, in order get that trademark special KGB cut, and Leonard allows her to do so.
On returning with the finger, Anna goes on vacation to Hawaii with Olga’s permission. But now, some more scenes emerge as compared to the earlier one.
Here in Hawaii, Leonard is also present, who tells Anna that he is here to protect her personally, since he has promised her protection and safe passage. Leonard assures Anna that she will see better days, and he will make sure that she gets what she deserves after so much trouble. Besides the dinner that he himself promised to Anna earlier, is also due on him. Anna 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 in the night to spend time with him.
Leonard comes to Anna with another proposal. He tells Anna, that she has to finish the KGB head Vasilliev, as he was responsible for the worsened relations between CIA and KGB, which were more or less fine before his joining in KGB. He informs Anna, 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. Anna agrees to this.
Anna is shown to open 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 present, and further story is that as soon as Anna finishes Vassilliev, she subdues Alex by some sedative, who is also present there. Anna puts a disc in Vasilliev’s laptop, to copy data from there. Alex regains his consciousness, and presses the alarm button. Anna 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 embassy, but the alarm is raised in the building. The guard tells him to move away, and so Leonard is forced go away from there without Anna, which makes him anxious about her welfare. He even visits her flat in Paris, and directs her friend Maud to inform him, in case Anna visits her flat.
Here, In CIA headquarters, Leonard is being congratulated by his colleague’s, 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 clue about Anna, and they comprehend that she may probably be dead by now. Just then, Leonard gets a message from Anna, in which she asks him to meet her in a park in Paris, on 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 CIA. Leonard tells CIA that KGB agent Alex is present there, where as Olga informs Alex, that CIA agent Leonard is present there. Both CIA and KGB, have their agents physically present there in the park.
While the agents from both sides move towards the place, Leonard stops them his men, as Anna is seen approaching them. Anna arrives there and while she kisses both Leonard and Alex, she tells both Alex and MIller, that she is done with both of them. Anna 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.
Anna returns the pen drive containing sensitive KGB data to Alex, which she had taken from Vasilliev’s laptop. Anna 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 earlier scene.
Anna gets emotional and says, 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, she goes out in the park and shoots Anna with her gun, saying that nobody can mess with KGB. Leonard and Alex point guns at each other on hearing the gunshots, but their respective agents take them away.
The movie goes to flashback again
The movie again goes to a three-month flashback time, when Anna comes to meet Olga with some information. Olga sends her driver out from the car, and tells Anna that she knows that the Americans have approached her to spy for them, as she had already seen handcuff marks on her wrists, when Anna came back with that finger of the diplomat.
Olga reveals to Anna that she knew that Anna had lost her watch during that confrontation only, in which CIA arrested Anna for a brief period. Being emotionally charged, up she says that Anna is like her daughter, and what she knows about Anna now will remain a secret with her only.
But Olga surprises Anna, when she tells Anna that she should continue to spy for CIA, and revert to her about their every move. Anna agrees, and thus Anna becomes a triple agent. First with KGB, then with CIA and then again an agent for KGB, spying back on CIA. She starts to bring the information from CIA to her.
When CIA agent, Leonard Miller had asked Anna to kill Vasilliev, Anna passes that information to Olga. Olga tells Anna to do whatever says to her and promises to set her free afterwards. The scene when Anna is fighting the guards, after killing Vasilliev is again shown, where Anna gets out of that place, and Olga is watching and waiting outside in her car.
Movie appears in the present with Anna being taken away
Again here, both Miller and Alex watch Anna’s body being taken out of the park, from a distance through their binoculars.
Here Anna 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 KGB.
The final revelation is shown in the end
Actually, all this was set up by Olga only, as per her promise to Anna. The parcel containing the gun which Anna is shown to open in the room, and with which Anna 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 preplanned by Olga herself. This was to show to 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. The conversation in which she tells Anna to use the gun, the Americans are going to provide for Anna for killing 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. Anna lets Olga know, that if she ever tries to fix her, she will leak the same to KGB.
Anna thanks Olga for training her well, and showing her how to protect oneself. Olga smiles, and while calling her bitch in appreciation, deletes the video message and all the data of Anna from KGB forever, so that Anna is free and the movie ends there.
