11/06/23

Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh

You may not be familiar with the name Reality Winner. And if you think it sounds like a nom de plume, invented for a would-be game-show participant, let me assure you that she’s a real person, who only recently finished serving a four year jail sentence for… well, here’s the thing. Some would say that she betrayed her own country. Others would argue that she went to jail for daring to expose something that really should have been in the public domain in the first place.

I know which camp I belong to.

And anyone who would suggest that a well-written screenplay can easily swing a viewer in its preferred direction should note that Tina Satter’s intriguing film (her debut as a director) cannot be accused of misrepresentation, because the actors in this true life drama speak words taken verbatim from a transcript of the original FBI interview tape.

We meet Reality (Sydney Sweeney) as she returns from a shopping trip to be confronted by Agents Garrick (Josh Hamilton) and Taylor (Marchant Davis), who show her their ID badges and then announce they have some very important questions to ask her. Its 2017, shortly after Donald Trump has fired James Comey. Reality is ex-airforce, now working for a government contractor as a translator of Farsi (though she’s actually much more proficient in Pashto). The two agents are investigating the recent leak of classified documents to online publication, The Intercept – documents that claim to provide proof of Russian interference in the 2016 United States election.

The interview gets under way, the two agents continually pushing and prodding their suspect. They are by turns genial and menacing and, under their combined onslaught, Reality’s confident stance soon begins to crumble…

There are no real surprises here – the case is already a matter of record – and this is a deceptively simple piece but, as the interview progresses, I form the powerful conviction that Reality Winner has been used as a sacrificial lamb in order to deter others from going down a similar path. Found something dodgy? Pretend you never saw it! Think you’ve found proof of underhand behaviour? Look the other way! Or face the consequences.

Sweeney’s portrayal of the titular character is extraordinary, offering an equal mix of vulnerability and self-conviction. There are flashes of directorial brilliance when lines of dialogue, redacted by the FBI from the tape, cause the characters themselves to vanish temporarily from the screen, the ultimate unreliable narrators. I’m pretty sure I’ve ever seen this idea done before but it’s an extraordinary flourish in an important film that deserves to be seen by as wide an audience as possible. Judging by the sparse crowd at this afternoon’s screening, that may not be happening – but it should.

I leave the theatre seething with indignation, reflecting that American politics is sinking ever deeper into the mire and that British politics (based on news received while actually writing this review) seems to be heading in the same direction.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney