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“In its elegant simplicity, its formal daring and superbly subtle and controlled performances, Tina Satter’s [Reality] is surely one of the best at the Berlin film festival,” says The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw.
In an enlightening snapshot of recent US history, Emmy Award nominee Sydney Sweeney stars in the incredible true story of a young woman who stirred up a media storm when she leaked a classified report about Russian interference in US elections to the press.
On a Saturday afternoon in June 2017, 25-year-old Reality Winner is confronted at her Georgia home by the FBI. A cryptic conversation begins, and Reality’s life quickly begins to unravel.
“The transcript of an audio recording of the FBI officers’ arrest and questioning of Winner became public; now Satter has used it, to the letter, as the basis of a movie (adapted from her original stageplay Is This a Room),” writes Peter Bradshow in his glowing review of the film David Hughes of Time Out called a “nerve-shredding, claustrophobic thriller”.
“It shows us the moment-by-moment situation as Winner, superbly played by Sydney Sweeney, is politely confronted outside her house by the two federal agents, Garrick (Josh Hamilton) and Taylor (Marchánt Davis).
“They have a warrant to search her house and car and, with a weirdly matey pass-agg insistence, repeatedly invite Winner to submit to their questioning on a “voluntary” basis, though without reading Winner her rights or mentioning anything about her needing a lawyer.”
Satter creates a tense thriller using dialogue taken directly from the FBI’s transcript of the gruelling interrogation that followed. By turns nail-biting, darkly funny and surreal, the film boasts a sensational performance from Sweeney as the first whistle-blower in the Trump era.
Reality will be released in UK and Irish cinemas June 2, 2023.
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