Film Review: Reality is an utterly gripping tale of mounting tension
Sydney Sweeney in Reality.
- Reality
- ★★★★★
Based on a true story, (12A) stars Sydney Sweeney as Reality Winner, a former translator for the National Security Agency who arrives home one afternoon to find the FBI at her door.
Agents Garrick (Josh Hamilton) and Taylor (Marchánt Davis) are unnervingly friendly and polite, and even ask Reality if they have her permission to record the conversation; once she gives her consent, the agents tell Reality they have a warrant to search her home.
Set in the wake of Donald Trump’s firing of James Comey, the then Director of the FBI, Reality is an unorthodox but brilliantly conceived spy flick that plays out over the course of a single afternoon.
The director, Tina Satter, co-writes the script with James Paul Dallas, although ‘co-adapts’ might be a better description of their process: every syllable of dialogue used in the film is taken from the FBI’s transcript of Reality’s interrogation by Garrick and Taylor.
That transcript, of course, includes words and lines that have been redacted, which Satter incorporates by having Sydney Sweeney simply blink out of existence for a moment or two, a chilling effect that hugely enhances the authenticity of the piece and also reminds us of Reality’s vulnerable situation as her home is swarmed by a host of FBI agents.
It’s a superb performance from Sweeney, as Reality’s mildly baffled demeanour disintegrates into a plethora of tiny physical tics and verbal missteps, and there’s excellent support from Josh Hamilton and Marchánt Davis, both of whom grow increasingly sinister even as they visibly strive to maintain a professional detachment.
An utterly gripping tale of mounting tension, Tina Satter’s debut offering is a tour-de-force. (cinema release)
