REALITY
US, 2023, 82 minutes, Colour.
Sydney Sweeney, Josh Hamilton, Marchant Davis, Benny Elledge, John Way.
Directed by Tina Satter.
Approaching this drama, about a whistleblower in 2017, a former member of the American forces, working as a linguist in the National Security Agency in Augusta, Georgia, we might think of the realities and ambiguities in the era of the Trump presidency, and realise this would be a good title, trying to come to grips with the reality of IT espionage and hacking and its exposure. And it is. However, on the very practical level, the central characters real name is Reality, Reality, Leigh Winner. And the irony of her surname, Winner, is not lost when she loses her case.
Originally a drama by Tina Satter, produced in 2019, during the Trump presidency, it is now an 82 minute film with screenplay by the director herself, but using the transcripts from the FBI interviews with Reality Winner when the have come to her house to question her. The film also uses the device of showing the text of the interviews as well as the screen monitoring the sound of the interviews. There is also another device, where aspects of the interviews are blacked out, the characters disappear momentarily from the screen. It is intriguing how this structure based on the interviews works dramatically.
Audiences watching the film may be thinking of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, the whistleblowers, the circulation of information, right or wrong…
Sydney Sweeney is very effective in the central role of Reality Winner, coming home with the groceries, finding the FBI, acquiescing in their interrogation and search of her house, quietly innocent, then the truth gradually revealed, her taking a document from the office, posting it to a magazine, her motivations, the issue of Russian hacking in the 2016 election, statements from the Trump administration, her reactions. While there are a few flashbacks to the office and her taking the document, most of the action is in the front yard and then in a furniture-less room in the house, making her composure and then lack of composure more credible and her admissions of what had happened. As audience, we observe, we listen, we puzzle, our sympathies are challenged, our integrity about right or wrong and whistleblowing.
While we can listen to the recordings, it is dramatically fascinating to watch the two central FBI agents, Josh Hamilton and Marchand Davis, the method they use, Marchand Davis and a certain sympathy with challenge, the main work for Josh Hamilton, laid-back, friendly, yet gradually becoming more penetrating in the questions, revealing what is known, making demands on Reality. It is also fascinating to watch the body language between the two agents, a nod of the head, an eyebrow raised, quick indications as to how to act. The other agents on the job, guards, the men searching the house, are not subtle at all.
It is on record that Reality Winner did go to jail, the irony that the information she sent to the publication for exposure was actually used on the floor of the House of Representatives soon after.
While the play was written and performed while Donald Trump was President, this film version is interesting to watch in terms of his bid for the 2024 nomination, the aftermath of the January 6th Capitol uprising, and the various charges being brought against him including, ironically, his taking of secret documents to Mar el Lago and the legal implications of this for him.
There have been several films about Julian Assange and Oliver Stone’s Snowden, with this film a helpful addition.
1. Title? The realities of espionage, international hacking, issues of treason and charges, in prison, the context of the 2016 presidential election campaign? And the fact that the central character, a whistleblower, was ironically called Reality and have the family name of Winner?
2. The screenplay based on a play, performed in 2019 during the Trump presidency? The film version released the year before the 2024 presidential campaign, the ambitions of Donald Trump, the charges against him, his enormous Republican support?
3. The screenplay based on transcripts of interviews between the FBI and Reality Winner? The visualising of the texts at times? The visualising of the soundwaves? And, at times, the blacking out of sense of material? And the disappearance of characters from the screen while these words were spoken?
4. Audience knowledge of the situation, stances towards Donald Trump, James Comey, the FBI and his rule during the presidential election, with Hillary Clinton, and his dismissal as FBI head, the presidential campaign of 2016, these events happening in the first half of the first year of Trump? The documentation about Russian hacking, interference in the election? Reality Winner and circulating the secret document, and the irony that as she went to prison, the issues were being discussed in Congress?
5. The action of the film, the suburban house in Georgia, the yard and the meeting with the agents, going into the house, so much of the action taking place in the empty room, no furniture? A touch of claustrophobic effect?
6. The nature of the performances, acting the words of the transcripts? The added advantage of performance, the FBI agents, their body language, threats, calm, encouragement, eyebrow raising, hints in movement…? And the body language of Reality, confident, the interrogations, gradually admitting the truth, worn down, nowhere to sit, the floor, a glass of water, the combination for her?
7. The effect for the audience seeing some flashbacks, Reality in the office, at work, the decision to take the document, her concealing it, the envelope, posting it?
8. Audience attitudes towards whistleblowers, the tradition of Assange, Manning, Snowden, the US government and imprisonment?
9. The portrait of Reality, just seeing her over the space of 90 minutes? The characters of the FBI agents, in charge, quiet, knowing the results but gradually eliciting the confession from Reality? The good agent-bad agent routine? The big agent and his supervision? The silent agents in their searching the house?
10. The overall effect of this experience, the personal look at Reality Winner and her attitudes, further career, her wanting to go into action, ideology, her decisions?
11. The overall effect for Americans, in the Trump era? For non-American audiences, looking on, observing, judgements?
