Reality

Reality is an odd film. One of those “truth is stranger than fiction” type tales. The full name of the central individual is Reality Winner (Sydney Sweeney). I am sure most Americans are unaware of her existence. The chronicle begins when she comes home and is confronted by the FBI. They explain they have a warrant to search her house. While they are talking, other operatives arrive and search her residence. She converses with Agent Garrick (Josh Hamilton) and Agent Taylor (Marchánt Davis). What they’re saying is picked up by a recording device, and the conversation forms the basis of the screenplay.

Director Tina Satter previously staged this adaptation as a stylized play called Is This A Room. The filmmaker assigned the title from a random question spoken by one of the investigators (John Way) when he interrupted the interrogation. It premiered on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre on October 10, 2021. The screenplay, credited to Satter and James Paul Dallas, contains verbatim dialogue from the unedited transcript of the official FBI audio recording.

What makes this docudrama so fascinating is the way it unfolds. The presentation is not cinematic. Reality and the two men simply talk in an empty adjacent room. The discussion is mundane. They ask about her pets, and she apologizes for the house not being clean. Yet there is a growing feeling of anxiety as their chat gets more and more serious. The claustrophobic setting adds to the tension. Agents Garrick and Taylor ask questions about her job and what she does there. It’s unsettling because the conversation is awkward. The agents are not giving specifics, and for a while, we don’t understand what she has done. In the ensuing investigation, we learn she leaked a classified government document regarding Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

A special mention must go to star Sydney Sweeney. I know the actress from Season 1 of The White Lotus, where she plays a bratty teenager. Here Sweeney is portraying this grounded woman that served in the Air Force and is also a linguist fluent in three languages. At first, she is remarkably calm and deadpan about the whole situation, but her demeanor progressively changes as their questions become more pointed and direct. I found Sweeney’s performance extremely compelling.

Reality is enlightening for several reasons. It’s a window into how the FBI works. The interaction leads to a confession. Reality would be sentenced to five years and three months in federal prison, the longest ever imposed for her crime. The FBI confrontation begins casually. The authorities don’t read her Miranda rights, but they identify who they are and emphasize cooperation is voluntary. She never even demands an attorney. The account suggests the news organization, The Intercept, mishandled the papers Reality entrusted to them. Furthermore, it implies many “classified documents” do not compromise national security but rather contain vital information that Americans have a right to know. Reality inspires a thoughtful debate that continues long after the movie is over.

06-15-23