What happens when four powerhouse actresses team up in an action-packed spy movie? You get The 355 – a star-studded thriller that delivers high-stakes suspense and heart-pounding action. The film follows a group of international agents who must put aside their rivalries to keep a top-secret weapon from falling into the wrong hands and triggering World War III.
CIA operative Mace (Jessica Chastain) is tasked to retrieve a top-secret weapon – a flash drive that can hack into any computer with a few keystrokes – and recruits the help of her colleague, retired British MI6 operative Khadijah Adiyeme (Lupita Nyong’o). The mission gets messier when DNI agent and psychologist Graciela Rivera (Penelope Cruz) and rival German BND agent Marie Schmidt (Diane Kruger) join the hunt, each wanting to claim the program drive for their respective agencies. But a group of four head-strong heroines clashing heads isn’t the end of their problems, they must work together to make sure the weapon doesn’t fall into the hands of international crime entrepreneurs.
The 355 is an original action thriller conceptualized by Jessica Chastain herself and written by Simon Kinberg and Theresa Rebeck. Featuring some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, The 355 is sure to be an exhilarating ride for fans of high-octane espionage.
In an interview with Screenrant, Jessica Chastain, who plays Mace and is also one of the film’s producers, talks about what excited her most in creating the movie, “Well, I like the idea that the actresses are all the bosses of the film. They’re the owners of the film. We raised the money on our own. We developed the script together, the characters together, we are the owners. It was made outside of a studio system, independently. We made it for a fraction of the cost of what a normal movie like this is made for. So, it’s exciting to me that the artists are now the owners of the work, and especially women. It’s exciting to me that the actresses are the ones in charge of the film.”
Director Simon Kinberg shared with CBR what drew him into directing the film, “I’m a huge James Bond fan and I love the spy genre in general. The first script I ever wrote was Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The 355 is a different kind of spy movie, but it is a love letter to spy movies. So, I was intrigued by the fact that it was a spy movie. I loved the idea of a female-ensemble spy movie. There are two things in there that are novel. One, there’s not a lot of female spy movies. But two, there are even fewer ensemble spy movies.”
Buckle up for a thrilling ride when The 355 comes to Lionsgate Play on January 31, 2025.