On a sunny day back in 2017, NSA translator Reality Winner arrived home with groceries and was greeted by a swarm of FBI agents.
They’d pegged her as a whistleblower, using her access to classified documents to leak proof of Russian interference in the 2016 United States election.
The agents started recording. And the actual transcript of their interrogation is the source material for the new Max (formerly HBO Max) film “Reality.â€
Playwright Tina Satter had already turned the transcript into a successful Broadway play titled “Is This a Room,†and she makes her movie directorial debut translating the same story to the screen.
Like a lot of plays-turned-movies, the film is unapologetically basic. I mean, it’s literally a conversation that takes place while agents search Winner’s home. But in this case, its simplicity is what makes this telling unique.
The script doesn’t pick sides or take creative liberties. “Reality†focuses on, well, reality: what was actually said—word for word—between Winner and the FBI.
From the start, Winner expresses no shock over the FBI raiding her property. Her immediate concern is getting her perishables to the fridge. She doesn’t request a lawyer. It’s all strangely casual—small talk about her pets or CrossFit filling much of the recording. Because the FBI already knows she’s guilty. They’re trying to assess how dangerous she is by understanding why she did it.
There is no action beyond that. No twist. The setting doesn’t change, aside from the occasional flashback to Winner sitting in her cubicle at work with Fox News playing on adjacent TVs.
It’s a symbolic flashback. On those TV screens, she sees what the public is being shown. Yet on her computer screen, she has access to classified information that the public doesn’t get to see. And therein lies the debate: Should the public know?
Sydney Sweeney (from other HBO projects “Euphoria” and “White Lotus”) shines in the titular role, displaying Winner’s growing discomfort over the course of the interrogation. Having previously served in the U.S. Air Force, she tells the agents, “I’m trying to deploy, I’m not trying to be a whistleblower.â€
But as she wears down, she explains her decision to leak the Russia report: “Seeing that information that had been contested back and forth, back and forth in the public domain for so long … Why isn’t this out there? Why can’t this be public?â€
Her decision to share it resulted in a sentence of five years and three months in federal prison, the longest sentence ever for leaking classified material to the media.
The script doesn’t praise Winner as a hero or condemn her as a traitor to America. It shows politicians who criticized her and journalists who applauded her. But the movie is careful not to favor either side. It simply presents the facts of what happened and leaves it to the audience to decide how to feel about it.
Kinda like how journalism is supposed to be.
Scott McDaniel is an assistant professor of journalism at Franklin College. He lives in Bargersville with his wife and three kids.
