Reality

Director: Tina Satter (USA). Year of Release: 2023

Augusta, Georgia. May 9^th 2017. A room with walls full of tv screens. A Fox News report tells us that President Donald Trump has just fired his FBI director for looking too deeply into possible Russian interference in the election which brought Trump to power (although given that this is Fox News, this is framed slightly differently). If you look closely, you see a small woman with blonde hair sitting in the room watching the news. Keep her in mind, we’ll be seeing more of her soon.

4 weeks later. The blonde woman is coming home with the shopping. As she drives up to her house, a man knocks on her car window. She gets out of her car, and two men introduce themselves as FBI agents. They repeatedly tell her that they have a search warrant, and that any discussion they have with her is “voluntary” on her part. They do not read her her Miranda rights or tell her she has a right to call a lawyer, nor does this possibility seem to occur to her.

A text appears on screen telling us that what we are about to see is based on a literal transcription of FBI records. We’re 5 minutes in, and I’ve already seen 2 things which make me worry about the film’s authenticity. Firstly, while it may well be that Trump used Russian aid to get elected, this argument is most vociferously used by people who want to avoid talking about the terrible élitist campaign of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Secondly, do you want to rely on what the FBI say?

As the conversation goes on, we learn that the woman’s name really is Reality – Reality Winner, who, yes, is a real person. Although she is small, she’s not someone you’d mess a with. She bench presses, does yoga, and owns 3 guns. She also is ex-military, having worked for the US Air Force as a translator from Farsi, Dari and Pashto. She left the forces after they offered her little chance of going to Afghanistan, and now translates from Farsi for the National Security Agency.

The FBI men make small talk, asking about the pets Reality has in the house (she has 2- a cat and a dog “who doesn’t like men”). They offer to take her groceries and put them in the fridge, and to bring the dog outside, but they do not, yet, allow Reality to enter her own home. They also do not tell her the reason for their visit, and she does not ask. If this were not based on real transcripts, you would start to question the artistic license being used.

The film is way over a third of a way through before Reality and the FBI agents enter the house and go to an unfurnished back bedroom where they can talk. The small talk continues, but gradually starts to get more work-related. The men ask Reality about what articles she might have printed out at work and whether she breached security clearance. All she can think of is an e-mail address which she took with her by mistake when she went out to Starbucks.

If you remember US-American news stories, you may know where all this is headed. I didn’t and I’m wary of plot spoilers to say too much. So if you don’t want any spoilers, look away now. Let’s just say that Reality Winner was accused by the FBI of leaking information which confirmed Trump’s connection with Russian election manipulation. The Intercept, who published the story, then revealed their source, which meant that Reality, an all-American patriot, was put on trial.

One of the FBI agents acts very sympathetically. After Reality warns them about her dogs, he relates a story about a friend who had a dog which attacked all men but him. He asks Reality about her work, and shows concern when she complains that the NSA played end-to-end Fox News: “for God’s sake, put Al Jazeera on, or a slide show with people’s pets.” He looks like he agrees with her, but isn’t that what FBI agents are supposed to do?

Throughout her interrogation, which doesn’t really feel like an interrogation, Reality is calm and cooperative, answering questions to the best of her ability. If you don’t know the case (and, as I say, I didn’t), you spend most of the film wondering whether she actually did it (much of your response may well depend on your trust of the FBI to get things right). This is not a didactic film but one whose main concern is to show you exactly what happened.

Every so often, we are shown a transcript to remind us of the authenticity of the story. Characters do not speak as if from a script but as they do in real life, with all the pauses and stumbling over words that you’d expect. One man twice talks about a time period in “late May, early April”, when he clearly is meaning to say something else. In this way, Reality shows its veracity by making it clear that truth depends on what you mean, not what you say.

The film only breaks its realism when there is a gap in the source. When part of the transcript is redacted, the camera goes fuzzy, or makes a sudden jump cut. It is an ambitious technique which could become very irritating, but somehow fits the mood of the presentation. “What we are showing you is the truth”, it is saying (or as true as we can expect to get from an FBI transcript), “apart from the parts which they do not want to make public”.

I had no idea what to expect before seeing Reality, it was just in the right time and place for my evening. This, and a slight ignorance of US politics, is probably the best way to experience it. It works more as a drama – nearly maintaining a unity of time and place – than as a news report. On more than one occasion, its hero distances herself from Edward Snowden and welcomes the attention of the FBI. But this is a dramatic work, not a manifesto. And as a drama it works well.