TBD | A journalistic retelling of the moment that NSA leaker Reality Winner was confronted by the FBI. Directed by Tina Satter Starring Sydney Sweeney, Josh Hamilton, and Marchant Davis Review by Jon Kissel |
In opposition to Sweeney’s Winner are her primary interrogators in good cop Garrick (Josh Hamilton) and less-good cop Taylor (Marchant Davis). Neither is concerned about their assignment, taking a polite tack as they describe how best to avoid the outcome of them having to shoot her dog. They could make the same choice that the no-necked sunglasses wearing agent does and not make small talk with her, but they do anyways, sharing banal details about workout regimens. They’re not jerks about it, though in Taylor’s crowding of her when they finally get down to business, they clearly could be. Satter uses her camera to get inside their heads, particularly when Winner drops the key detail of a document being folded in half, practically setting off a lightbulb of cinematic language that pings for the viewer as much as it does for the agents. It’s not hard to root against figures of government enforcement who should obviously never be spoken to without a lawyer, but Satter doesn’t feel the need to juice the viewer with casting or costuming. These are normal looking guys in business casual clothes, and they’re coming to collect the titular character.
Satter’s one big innovation is in how she navigates the redactions that go along with this kind of story. Her choice is to jarringly blur out the sound or the characters themselves as they say the no-no segments, and it works every time. The closest comparison is in Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours, when that film’s lead has to slice a nerve in his arm to free himself from under a boulder. Boyle uses an electronic distortion that sounds a lot like what Satter uses, and the sense memory of 127 Hours redounds to Reality’s benefit. Satter’s choice on what to redact edges into the puzzling when she at first blurs the name of The Intercept, where Winner leaked her document and which sloppily published it with details that led the FBI directly to her, and then doesn’t later. This discrepancy could be some legal wrangling, but it’s noticeable and unremarked on in the film’s postscript.
Reality gives its lead a necessary, talent-expanding role for her burgeoning career and gives 2023 a capable version of a Matlock bottle episode, but the question hanging over it for this viewer is why Reality Winner, of all whistleblowers? Another movie is in the works about her right now. Isn’t Chelsea Manning’s story more relevant and compelling, on half a dozen different levels? To repeat, Daniel Hale is descended from Nathan ‘one live to give for my country’ Hale. There’s something absolving about Winner exposing attempted Russian interference in the 2016 election, as opposed to beloved Democratic presidents bombing wedding parties or CIA-directors-turned-MSNBC-regulars having to answer for their illegal lies to Congress about domestic surveillance. Reality is a well-executed version of what it is, but I can’t help but ask why this and not something else. C+