A must-see film.

The life of a couple who are secret agents is a nightmare. The duo inevitably keeps secrets from each other, or one inevitably uses the cover of a confidential mission to cheat on their partner. And harmony shatters. Except for George (Michael Fassbender) and his wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), British spies living in what seems like domestic bliss. Their picture-perfect marriage intrigues their colleagues in a glass-walled office high above London.

In Black Bag (the title refers to covert operations involving the theft of sensitive documents in black bags), Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter David Koepp – known for Jurassic Park (1993) by Steven Spielberg, and Mission: Impossible (1996) by Brian de Palma, among others – delve into the mysteries of marriage, beyond the realm of espionage.

It's the twisted games of conjugal life that interest the American filmmaker, much as they did in his debut film Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989), a psychological thriller that earned the 26-year-old director the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Notably, in Black Bag, George is obsessed with the truth, much like James Spader's character in Sex, Lies and Videotape, who films women's confessions on video.

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