Jessica Chastain
Mason 'Mace' Brown
Overview
A group of top female agents from American, British, Chinese, Colombian, and German government agencies are drawn together to try and stop an organization from acquiring a deadly weapon to send the world into chaos.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
5 min readThe 355: A Spy Thriller That Forgets to Spy on Itself
I’ll admit it: I went into The 355 expecting to be disappointed. Not because of the premise—an international team of female spies racing to stop a global catastrophe sounds like exactly the kind of high-stakes, high-glamour action I usually enjoy—but because of the numbers. A 4.7/10 on SensCritique, a TMDB audience score hovering around 6.0.
Those aren’t just bad; they’re the kind of scores that make you wonder if the film actively resents its own existence. And yet, as I watched Jessica Chastain’s CIA operative Mace barrel through Parisian streets or Lupita Nyong’o’s Khadijah trade barbs with Diane Kruger’s Marie, I found myself oddly charmed. Not because The 355 is good, exactly, but because it’s so earnest in its failures.
It wants to be Mission: Impossible meets Ocean’s 8, a slick, globe-trotting thriller where the women get to do all the punching and shooting. Instead, it’s a film that trips over its own ambitions, like a spy who’s forgotten how to pick a lock but still insists on breaking down the door.
Simon Kinberg, the director and co-writer (alongside Theresa Rebeck), has made a career out of big, loud blockbusters—X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Sherlock Holmes—that promise spectacle and deliver something closer to a shrug. The 355 is no different. The film’s opening act is a masterclass in how to waste a killer premise.
We’re introduced to our five leads in rapid succession: Mace (Chastain), the steely American; Khadijah (Nyong’o), the British psychologist-turned-spy; Graciela (Penélope Cruz), the Colombian psychologist (yes, another one); Marie (Kruger), the German mercenary with a grudge; and Lin Mi Sheng (Fan Bingbing), the Chinese operative with a mysterious agenda. They’re all drawn together when a MacGuffin—a doomsday device, naturally—falls into the wrong hands, and suddenly, the fate of the world rests on whether these women can learn to trust each other.
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsChastain Pushed, Kinberg Directed: What The Search Trail Actually Proves About The 355
The target is locked: The 355 from 2022. It is described as a 2022 American action spy thriller film co-produced and directed by Simon Kinberg 
. IMDb condenses it the same way: Directed by Simon Kinberg, with Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz, latestnetflix.com contends, Bingbing Fan, Diane Kruger . No more plot in the snippet. Just that top-secret setup tease.
The Chastain-Kinberg hook
Here is the one behind-the-scenes thread the evidence supports. Chastain helped shepherd the film from the beginning as one of its producers . That credit matters. Director and co-writer Simon Kinberg’s film did not just hire her as a face.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJT8ga9HNVc
One video title goes further: Simon Kinberg Reveals Jessica Chastain Is The Reason He Directed ‘THE 355’ . Taken at face value, she recruited him. The snippet gives no quote, no date, no anecdote, so treat the how and why as unconfirmed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUytynOoJuM
Publicity paired them up. A WION Exclusive was billed as In conversation with Jessica Chastain, Simon Kinberg, Diane Kruger . Three names. No transcript in the results. No salary talk, no set feud, no reshoot saga in what was retrieved.
Writing credits are clearer in the listings. One entry credits a screenplay by Theresa Rebeck . Another gives the fuller chain: from a screenplay by Theresa Rebeck and Kinberg, based on a story by Rebeck .
Listings, runtime and reception snapshot
Keep expectations flat. The evidence here is thin, limited to titles, snippets and URLs, not full reporting.
What the databases do say:
- Original title: The 355, Director(s): Simon Kinberg, Country: États-Unis, Chine, Genre(s): Action, Thriller
- Duration: 124 min
- Rating: 4.7/10 (1547 votes)
- Where to Watch listing: Stream Netflix Peacock
Critical mood in the snippets skews disappointed. RogerEbert.com calls elements in the film frustratingly half-baked . Rotten Tomatoes carries the line about a mix of great elements from great spy movies, coupled with a great cast — creating a product that is significantly less than the sum of its parts . Short version: big ensemble idea, weak payoff chatter.
No verified gossip beyond that Chastain-producer origin. Everything else would be invention.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.