REALITY (2023) – Hero or traitor? A fascinating look at reality!

Reality is a perfect example of how “less can be more” when it comes to film making techniques. Directed by Tina Satter, Reality is what one may term as a minimalistic movie in terms of its simplicity but it comes across as great cinema. It depicts the genuine account of what happened on June 3rd, 2017, when FBI agents arrested Reality Winner (yep, that is her real name! ), a former employee working on American intelligence, for leaking confidential documents to the press. The entire film is less than 90 minutes long and is based verbatim on the recorded transcript of what happened that afternoon. It has just a handful of cast members, and the entire movie is focus on the dialouge between Reality Winner (played by Sydney Sweeney) and two FBI agents (played by Josh Hamilton and Marchant Davis). In a way, there is no need for a screen writer here even though this was credited to director Tina Satter and James Paul Dallas, since the whole script was taken off from the actual recording made by the FBI agent during their arrest.

Reality Winner was the whistleblower for papers she released to the press that linked Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. Sydney Sweeney, who was notable in Season One of The White Lotus as Olivia, the pampered and snobbish daughter, delivers an enthralling performance here. When approached by the police, she initially appears innocent, but her uneasiness and fear grow when she knows she has no way of denying the charges. The verbatim dialogue is outstanding and resonating with a sense of realism, as well as contributing to a depiction of the characteristics of the participants. Reality for instance started off by constantly expressing concerns about the welfare of her pet dog and cat, as well as towards the end. At the end, we get a decent feel of the type of person she is, and one could argue that what she did was both bold and beneficial to the public. The leaked material was eventually used as evidence in investigations into Russian election meddling.

I’m amazed that such an engaging film can be made with merely the recorded transcript of an FBI arrest and interrogation of a whistleblower. In fact, this originally premiered as a play called “Is This A Room” by the same director Tina Satter. Reality might have easily gone horribly wrong, but thanks to Tina’s great direction and an outstanding performance by Sydney Sweeney, it comes out on tops..