2023 Movie
Dir. Tina Satter · France, United Kingdom · English
This surreal filmmaking experiment yields mixed results
This taut chamber piece about NSA whistleblower Reality Winner (yes, that’s her real name) is based on the FBI’s account of her interrogation one June day in 2017. “Based on” doesn’t quite capture Reality’s exhaustive commitment to the facts, though, because this movie is essentially a dramatic reading of a verbatim transcript of the FBI agents’ recording that day. The only time it breaks with reality is when it reaches a redacted portion of the transcript, at which point characters glitch out of view, leaving us staring into the blank set around them. Otherwise, every cough, false start, and even every off-topic remark is recreated with exacting precision here, lending the film a paradoxically stilted, slightly stagy air. But rather than pull you out of the proceedings, Reality’s palpable artificiality only immerses us into the uneasy tension and surreality that its anxious protagonist must have been feeling that day.
That anxiety is contagious, thanks to the movie’s clinical style and central performance. The camerawork is largely unblinking, moving in uncomfortably close on Reality (Sydney Sweeney) as two FBI agents (Josh Hamilton and Marchánt Davis) subject her to their bizarre hot-cold interrogation, which ranges from seemingly friendly inquiries about her dog to jugular-aimed questions about the allegations against her. Sweeney shoulders all this pressure remarkably well, deftly keeping us as much in the dark as Winner tried to keep the FBI in — which makes not knowing the real story a benefit, rather than a barrier, to watching Reality.
Outside of Sweeney’s commanding performance, Reality feels somewhat limited by its absolute loyalty to the FBI’s transcript, though. Much of the film’s 83-minute runtime is dedicated to recreating the text, which leaves only a few minutes at the end for it to express its own point of view on Winner’s actions. Though these scant moments make for a compelling reframing of the charges against Winner, they feel overshadowed by and separate from the movie’s rigorous devotion to the transcript, which ultimately means Reality can’t quite transcend its status as merely an interesting filmmaking curio.
Augusta, Georgia, United States, June 3, 2017. After running some errands, Reality Winner returns home, where she is approached by two men.
"Satter’s handling of the material and Sweeney’s performance... bring this into a more intriguing space where questions of narrative truth, perception and the punishment for honesty are addressed."
— Caitlin Quinlan
"Reality is filled with the sickening tension of a thriller, but it really plays like a tragedy, given that we already know what happened to its subject next."
— Alison Willmore
A near-real-time account of the FBI’s interrogation of NSA employee Reality Winner, accused of leaking classified information about Russian involvement in the 2016 elections.
Sweeney’s performance is the high point of Reality, giving solid form to the creeping sense of dread pervading throughout the movie. Director Tina Satter (who also created and directed the stage play Reality is adapted from) and her behind-the-scenes collaborators strip everything down to put Sweeney in the spotlight, allowing her ample opportunity to showcase her formidable talents (if her diverse career hadn’t already convinced you of them). Even if it ultimately hits a ceiling, the movie’s central turn, mastery of tone, and Satter’s literalizing of the tension between truth versus fiction in Trump-era America make it an intriguing experiment worth watching.
This aptly named movie takes a novel — if not entirely successful — approach to conveying the tension between truth and fiction in Trump-era America
Farah Cheded is a UK-based curator at A Good Movie to Watch and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved freelance critic whose work has been published at outlets including The Playlist, Paste Magazine, and Film School Rejects. She lives in fear of the day she runs out of 'Columbo' episodes to watch.
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