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Reality (12A)
Directed by Tina Satter
ON June 3 2017, 25-year-old former member of the US Air Force and NSA contractor Reality Winner (real name) returned home to be confronted by two FBI agents wanting to question her about the leaking of a classified document to the media about Russian interference in the 2016 US elections.
With all the dialogue taken directly from the FBI transcript, what transpires is a tense and chilling docu-drama, anchored by a virtuoso performance from Sydney Sweeney (The White Lotus, Euphoria) as Reality.
Adapted from her 2019 stage play Is This A Room, co-writer directer Tina Satter’s powerful debut feature is a gripping depiction of the gruelling interrogation Reality underwent at the hands of Agent Garrick (Josh Hamilton) and Agent Taylor (Marchant Davis). The three leads enact every stutter, um and cough outlined in the transcript, while every redacted sentence is portrayed by visual jump cuts or a character suddenly disappearing.
While both funny, dark and surreal the film also gives you chills as Reality, who seems open and non-confrontational at all times, is faced by these two agents who veer from small talk about her pets to outright bullying, particularly in the way they insist to be let into her home and state repeatedly that they have a search warrant. It takes them ages to reveal both the warrant and their FBI badges, at which point a ridiculous number of intelligence officers descend on the property.
She then agrees to be interviewed by the two officers in her own home, which seems unorthodox particularly as she has no lawyer present to advise her.
“I don’t think you’re a big bad master spy. I think you just messed up,” Agent Garrick tells her in a bid to get her to confess to being the whistle blower.
The clever visuals and the sterling cast allow Satter to bring these real events to life and gives you a sense of who Reality Winner is while showing you the state at work.
It is both frightening and anger-inducing as she received the longest jail sentence ever imposed at the time (five years and three months) for leaking a single piece of classified information.
Out in cinemas today
