A ROSE FROM CHARLIE AND MARIE

A couple decides to become clandestine couriers for shadowy U.S. government agencies in a metaphysically charged spy tale involving black-market nukes and a mad general’s dream of creating a perfect Chinese state.

Charlie and Marie were simply meant to be. Both possess almost preternatural skills and abilities, along with a burning need to experience a kind of hyperreality at all times, all of which makes the globe-trekking duo uniquely suited to execute the specialized “errands” that they are regularly assigned. They also can’t keep their hands off each other. Problems soon arise, however, when the star-crossed lovers in this absorbing but overly long thriller begin to doubt whether their otherwise lucrative international missions are truly in the service of good. At one point, Marie explains, “It’s really kind of abstract. We want to contribute to justice in the world; we try to make a difference. Plus, we need challenges, stimulation.” When the high-powered husband and wife do, indeed, start systematically undermining certain missions they deem suspect, they open themselves up to the fiendish machinations of Chang K’ung and his zeal to secure and detonate a spate of football-sized nuclear bombs in the U.S. Astonishingly, the truly explosive element in the whole affair remains the ethereal relationship between Charlie and Marie. In fact, others, including a beautiful and enigmatic covert agent named Suzy Wu and a charming and good-hearted intelligence officer named Sam Wallaby, crave the couple’s happiness as much as K’ung craves world domination. After Charlie and Marie do their level best to unravel K’ung’s terrorist plot, Wu and Wallaby set their sights on undermining Charlie and Marie’s singular union.

A multifaceted meditation on the ephemeral nature of existence, doubling as an equally intricate espionage thriller.