Post by Dracula on Oct 1, 2023 19:01:01 GMT -5
Reality(7/25/2023)
Reality is a movie I suspect might have worked better for me had I not known about the true story it’s based on ahead of time, so spoiler warning. The movie is based on a stage play called “Is This a Room,” which was itself based on the transcript of the FBI interrogation of the military contractor Reality Winner (actual name) who would later be convicted of leaking a classified document. And by “based on” that transcript I mean it’s a verbatim reenactment of every word of the interrogation, though presumably edited for time. I had actually already heard an audio version of this play when it aired on NPR a couple years ago and I think I enjoyed that more than watching this movie, and I suspect that has less to do with any shortcomings of this adaptation than it does with the fact that I went into that version blind. In that context where you don’t already know what this is about and whether the person being questioned is guilty this all reads as being a lot more Kafkaesque and oppressive, but when you watch it knowing what the interrogators are going for and also know that the person they’re questioning is (by her own later admission) guilty as charged, it all feels a lot more routine and just sort of seems like an odd event to put such a focus on. As an adaptation unto itself, the film sports a pretty good performance by Sydney Sweeney and the film has an interesting though perhaps not entirely effective technique of dropping audio when redacted portions of the transcript come up. The film was produced by HBO and debuted on Max but doesn’t feel like a theatrical feature that found its way to streaming through circumstances, this feels like a TV movie. Not necessarily in an entirely bad way but it’s a pretty small scale drama that lacks a certain something.
**1/2 out of Five
