Reality
Every once in a while a movie will try to use more naturalistic speech patterns (particularly during the Mumblecore movement), usually with interesting but ultimately unsatisfying results. Tina Satter's "Reality" takes an even more unique approach in an attempt at realism, opting to use an FBI interrogation transcript as the sole source of dialogue. Sydney Sweeney stars as Reality Winner, who you may remember as the former NSA translator who leaked an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and was given a staggering five years and three months in federal prison. The movie is an almost-in-real-time recreation of the day when two FBI agents showed up at the real-life Winner's home with a warrant to search her house and belongings, all while capturing the entire thing on a recording device.
For large stretches of the movie, the experiment produces fascinating results. Winner is oddly calm as the two seemingly friendly agents engage in small talk and ask her about her fitness routine, while a larger team arrives and begins to search Winner's house. Winner is more concerned with the safety of her dog (she doesn't like men) and making sure her cat doesn't escape as agents go in and out. She doesn't even ask the agents what they are doing there, and if you're like me (who didn't know about the real story), you don't even learn the reason until about an hour into the movie.
The casual nature of the raid in combination with the realistic conversation style and sparse but ominous music does an excellent job of building incredible stress. Once we finally get to the real showdown, a straight-up interrogation in a creepy unused room, the movie is operating at such an extremely high level of tension that it almost feels like the viewer is the one being interrogated.
The unique structure and approach is a big reason why most of the movie works so well, but it's also simultaneously the movie's biggest weakness. The large stretches of small talk are interesting at first, but often go on for far too long. This is how the raid went down in reality, but as discussed, reality doesn't always translate well to the screen. You can only build tension by withholding crucial information for so long before boredom starts to set in. The dialogue, which started out interesting, starts to drag. I know this is a dramatic real-life story, but there may not be enough in this singular event to support even an 82-minute movie.
Sweeney has a skyrocketing profile thanks to roles in hit HBO shows like Euphoria and White Lotus, but this role serves as a change of pace and proof that she has more range than may have been expected. She plays Winner as someone who is cool and calm under pressure. There are no explosions of emotion or even much panic to speak of; Winner certainly doesn't want to get caught, but she is also confident in what she has done and seems unafraid to face the consequences. There is no fancy hair or makeup, no perfect lighting, no clever script to hide behind; Sweeney feels completely natural as Winner. There might be a touch of overacting going on when it comes to facial expressions (not every lie needs to be punctuated with a lip bite or sideways glance), but it's still a very impressive performance.
The politics and aftermath of the case are only briefly touched upon using brief on-screen text before the end credits. There is no hammering home of a message or moral. The movie is more interested in capturing who Winner is by showing what she did on that one day. It's a fascinating attempt at portraying the reality of a person and a situation, with all the imperfections that come with both.
