Eva Green’s Vesper Lynd Was a Girl Boss, Not a Bond Girl

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As a grounded reboot during the prime era of grounded reboots, Casino Royale upended practically every expectation the James Bond franchise had established since 1962's Dr. No – including, thankfully, the bond girl concept with the introduction of Eva Green's Vesper Lund. Atmosphere (say goodbye to 98% of the camp), cinematography (say hello to shaky cam), characterization (a ruthless Bond), setting (a poker game as fraughtly tense as any underground lair!), and the list goes on. The bond girl, or 007's rotating love interest, no longer existed just for the conquest. Eva Green’s Vesper Lynd is as thoroughly developed and appropriately layered as her male lead, neither a femme fatale, victim, hero, or antagonist. Suitably, she's instead a beautifully complicated mix with no easy answers.

James Bond, Meet Your Equal in Vesper Lynd

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Eva Green had few film credits to her name before Casino Royale, and of those four, only director Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven wasn't a production from her native France. You'd never tell from the way the actress slides through scenes with the same fitted ease as a tailored suit. From the moment Vesper unceremoniously interrupts the blond Bond's (Daniel Craig) dinner by tossing down her purse and folding into the seat across from him, declaring with wickedly sparkling eyes, "I'm the money," Green radiates a sense of assured capability and established personality.

Vesper wears a nigh-constant sardonic smile that's as purposefully selected as the rest of her elegant appearance (subtle makeup, an all-black suit skewing traditionally masculine), and it's her primary armor as she ripostes back and forth with Bond with lines sharp enough to cut diamonds: "I suppose you've given some thought to the notion that if you lose, our government will have directly financed terrorism." A line that leaves Bond temporarily speechless, for once. It's flirtatious, yet not; a verbal dance of intellectual equality echoing the film's theme that poker rests not upon chance, but reading the person across the table.

It's a game both parties inevitably fail, but not for lack of trying. For all of Green's wry mockery, leaning toward Bond across the narrow table with chin cupped in her hand, Vesper's nuance thrives in restraint. Bond dubs her projected confidence a cover for her insecurity; Vesper surrenders no quarter. Even when he strikes close to home in a bid for the upper hand, the gleaming blade of her half-smirk hardly shifts. There's an added stillness to her bearing, a growing acceptance of the problem before her and how to respond accordingly. Which she does, essentially reading Bond for filth.

Vesper Creates Her Own Rules

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The Quantum criminal organization might have forced Vesper to assume the role of double agent by threatening her lover, but she refuses to allow yet another insidiously arrogant man to dictate the rules. That power of personality strikes as inseparable from Vesper overall as much as it's her internal defiance of her overarching situation. She breaks Bond's rules enough to keep him in his place without endangering their plan, because she's a far cry from foolish. He orders her to act as eye candy to disarm his poker opponents? She'll enter the casino floor a different way.

There's no way for Vesper to realize Bond has her mimicking Solange Dimitrios (Ivana Miličević), the murdered wife who was essentially a kept woman to her husband: dressed to the nines, catching every man's eye at the poker table, and cruelly spurned. Vesper recognizes a playboy accustomed to manipulation, though. Moving through the world as a woman, she's likely endured many in her professional career, let alone her personal life. Even after moving to the bar, Vesper's comfortably engaged in the game's proceedings, whereas Solange rested in her tragic misery. By nature alone Vesper's a striking contrast, owning the room entirely for her purposes with a freedom and independence the film intentionally denies its other women.

Refreshingly, she doesn't compromise her resolve in order to necessitate plot advancement, either. CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) buys Bond back into the game at a crucial point while Vesper remains stalwart in her refusal to bend to Bond's angered insistence. She holds all the keys to the bank vault and doesn't let Bond forget as such. It's appropriately challenging, not cruel. Through the gauze of her frustration, Vesper's also intuitive enough to follow a poisoned Bond long enough to save his life. The same woman later driven to taking her own life from guilt won't let a man die just because he's smug and irritating.

Eva Green's Performance Especially Shines in Its Details

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Eva Green's performance is even more impressive in hindsight. It's equally important when that dubious, tiny smile of Vesper's isn't present: once Bond leaves after telling her to look pretty and be quiet (somehow even more patronizing in a British accent), Vesper's mocking indulgence drops entirely. Is her impassive blankness from anger? Exhaustion from placating him? The secrets she's holding against her will? And then the moment vanishes in the face of Bond's exasperation over his tailored suit. “I sized you up from the moment we met," Vesper hums like an afterthought while applying her mascara. This time, after Bond's back is turned, the droll smile remains.

Of course, violence cracks Vesper's reliable shell of protection wide open. The character’s vulnerability is the first hint of what truly lies beneath and is a desperately rare thing by necessity. Drinking wine to soothe her nerves isn't enough, as the broken and toppled wine glass indicates; hence Bond discovering her curled up, glamorously expensive dress and all, on the freezing shower floor. This is the first time Vesper can't meet, match, or surpass Bond's eyes. Hers flicker constantly in time with her shaking frame, her breathing uneven as she clings to his arm. Helping Bond kill a man would be traumatic enough, but surely, Vesper's also thinking of the boyfriend she adores; she's realizing how far into immorality Quantum forced her hand. So, Bond kisses her metaphorically bloodied fingers clean.

Other women in old Bond canon won his affection and/or were a force to be reckoned with, chiefly Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh, Tomorrow Never Dies) and Tracy Draco (Dame Diana Rigg, On Her Majesty's Secret Service). And Spectre/No Time To Die offers future Bond a second chance at happiness, but the emotional stakes are flattened and empty in comparison to the profound simplicity and non-sexual tenderness of a ruthless spy melting for Vesper Lynd. This is an actual romance.

Ultimately, Vesper Is a Good Woman Broken By Evil

Similar, if less obvious, moments like these leave splintered pieces of Vesper across the film. Bond derisively says she isn't his type; "Smart?" she asks. "Single," he responds, causing an unseen (to Bond) flash of regret. There's her begrudging smile acknowledging Bond's intelligence both strategically and in off-hand martini recipes; Vesper's silent disquiet at seeing a gun. Bond praises whomever Vesper loves as "a very lucky man," and bitterness fractures that same smile. Perhaps her first purely joyful look is watching him sleep. She's a woman beaming, her torment eradicated under the spotlight of Bond's affection. She might have stripped him of his armor, but true to the moment of their meeting, the wound goes both ways. Then -- she's startled and guarded whenever her text tone rings, her temporary, fleeting joy deflated.

Should Vesper have trusted Bond with the truth? Perhaps. But it's difficult indeed to break free from fear. Vesper's a good woman crushed into nothingness by Machiavellian powers beyond even Bond's capacity to overcome. Her nobility -- one of the few decent people in the franchise, really -- condemns her, because she condemns herself out of misplaced repentance.

Few women in Craig's subsequent films lived up to Vesper’s legacy or matched his presence tit-for-tat, in large part due to the care taken with Vesper's layered strength both independent and complimentary to Bond. The script fleshed her out and Green made her sparkle whip-sharp, deftly balancing each element with a smoothness veteran performers could rightfully envy. Repeated viewings just enhance her delicate work and prove that, until new strides are made, Vesper Lynd holds the status of Bond’s romantic equal in a chokehold.