‘Reality’ movie review: Sydney Sweeney shines in surreal political drama
The 2016 United States elections were an extraordinary time in hindsight, playing out kind of like a skit devised by Charlie Brooker and Armando Iannucci that went on for 12 months too long. Forced to decide between what would have been America’s first female president in the form of Hillary Clinton and a strange man with a blustery toupée who had covered himself with Wotsit dust, it’s no wonder that a young female employee named Reality Winner (yes, that is her real name) felt compelled to reveal the truth behind the bizarre election.
Releasing unauthorised documents to the media regarding Russia’s meddling in the election, Winner was given an unprecedented sentence for a crime of her nature; 63 months in prison. Playwright Tina Satter saw this curious leak as the perfect subject for a low-budget stage play, releasing Is This A Room, named after a peculiar line from the official recording of the interaction between Winner and the FBI.
Her movie adaptation of her own stage play elevates much of what made her original concept so great in the first place, making a surreal piece of drama that deconstructs the practice of interrogation and provides a fascinating insight into the national psychology of America in 2016.
Sydney Sweeney fills the boots of Winner, providing a complex, emotionally layered performance as a young woman caught in the middle of a national crisis far bigger than her humble Texas home, of which much is oddly gutted. After a hoard of FBI investigators appear at her door and swarm her home, swabbing for prints, she is taken into a backroom by two agents, played by Josh Hamilton and Marchánt Davis, who proceed to employ some deceptive tactics.
Indeed, there are similarities drawn between the illusory tactics of the FBI employees and the real-life swathe of fake news that threw the 2016 election into turmoil; suddenly, flagrant lying and deception had become a legitimate political tactic. In a similar vein, Satter doesn’t give an unequivocal answer as to if Winner was right in releasing those documents, just like the swirl of public sentiment at the time, she illustrates the protagonist as a brave protector of truth as well as a naive young woman in way over her head.
Transcribed from the real-life conversations held between Winner and the FBI, Satter attempts to employ some cinematic techniques to make the already riveting drama more absorbing, yet her efforts become rather repetitive, finding it difficult to pull away from the action and provide the audience with some respite. ‘Classified’ pieces of information are disguised with fancy special effects which fizz Sweeney out of reality like a cathode ray TV falling to blackness, joined by an annoying high-pitched squeal reminiscent of Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen, though neither flashy feature does much to elevate the material.
Reality is at its best when it is merely enjoying time revelling in its terrific characterisation, with Sweeney clearly enjoying getting her fingernails dirty with a complex role. Depicting Reality Winner is no easy task, the glorified whistleblower was merely one victim in a twisted machine that lied to its population one Fox News report at a time. It is Winner’s curious morals that make the film so compelling, stating in a revealing CBS news report: “The truth wasn’t true any more…The public was being lied to”.
Reality – in UK & Irish cinemas June 2nd.
