In 2017, the FBI arrested Reality Leigh Winner, an NSA translator and former member of the United States Air Force, on charges of unauthorized release of classified government documents. Winner’s actions violated the Espionage Act of 1917, resulting in the longest prison sentence ever imposed for a government leak to the media — she spent five years and three months in a federal prison. Have I piqued your interest?
Reality, a new movie from HBO Films, documents the day the FBI interrogated and arrested her. The entirety of the film’s dialogue comes from the FBI recording from the day. In the end, the movie feels much longer than its 82-minute run time; it drags toward its climax. Even though Winner’s story has been documented in the media at length, I don’t want to spoil any of the plot’s details.
Instead, I’ll talk about the style and mechanics of the film. Because the script comes directly from government material, there is no room for creativity in Reality’s dialogue. When a character utters a word or sentence redacted in the original case file, Tina Satter (the director and writer of the film) inserts static noise. In my opinion, it is one of the film’s many flaws. In a narrative film, filmmakers are not bound by the 100% objective truth. I would have preferred Satter infer what was redacted for the audience. She also shows the FBI file and visuals of the recording to display that what we are hearing and seeing are true. Another unnecessary and distracting choice this movie makes throughout.
JFK, the controversial retelling of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Oliver Stone, is a much better version of what Satter wanted to accomplish in Reality. Stone took many liberties with JFK, even to the point of giving credence to some of the worst conspiratorial explanations of the assassination. But at least the story Stone told was compelling. Reality falls flat in this regard.
On the positive end, the performances of Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria) as Reality, and Josh Hamilton (Eighth Grade) and Marchánt Davis (A Journal for Jordan) as two of the FBI agents buoyed the movie’s strange choices. Sweeney proved that she can be much more than an object of a filmmaker’s sexual desires. I would love to see her take on more roles in this vein going forward. Davis also shines in what could end up being a breakout role for his career.
Reality is a movie that was likely better off as a play, like Satter intended originally, or in the form of a documentary. In just reading her Wikipedia page, I came away fascinated by this story of how the U.S. government keeps secrets from its citizenry and the lengths it takes to punish those attempting to tell the truth. It also tells the story of how The Intercept, at the time helmed by Glenn Greenwald, mishandled the classified leak and exposed Winner to the FBI. Maybe down the line Winner’s story can be told by a filmmaker less concerned with facts and more occupied by making an entertaining film.
Does Reality interest you?