The Operative

Rachel is a multilingual young Western woman recruited by the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service, and sent undercover to Tehran. There she settles into the rhythms of a country that fascinates her and begins a romance with Farhad, a businessman she has been assigned to watch. Her handler, Thomas, rates her highly, and the operational command in Israel trusts her with increasingly demanding and dangerous work, until she decides to walk away from the mission and leaves Thomas a cryptic message that sends him looking for her before she can become a threat to Israel. Years later, having heard nothing from her for over a year, Thomas receives a puzzling call and must determine whether she poses a danger to the organization while also trying to keep her safe.

The film is directed and written by Yuval Adler and sits between his debut Bethlehem and The Secrets We Keep in his chronological filmography. Diane Kruger plays Rachel, Martin Freeman plays Thomas, Cas Anvar plays Farhad, and the cast includes Werner Daehn, Liron Levo and Hadi Khanjanpour, with forty credited performers and 114 credited crew members. It is a co-production of Germany, Israel, the United States, France and Switzerland, running 120 minutes.

Released in July 2019, the film drew modest audiences, with a worldwide box office of about 1 million USD. On IMDb it holds 5.8/10 from around 8,300 votes, and on TMDB 5.8/10 from 249 votes, while a critics' rating stands lower at 5.1/10 from 32 reviews, so audiences rated it somewhat more favorably than critics did.