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Reality Check
MARIA DUARTE recommends a startling and original drama derived entirely from FBI transcripts
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Reality (12A)
Directed by Tina Satter
ON June 3 2017, 25-year-old former member of the US Air Force and NSA contractor Reality Winner (real name) returned home to be confronted by two FBI agents wanting to question her about the leaking of a classified document to the media about Russian interference in the 2016 US elections.
With all the dialogue taken directly from the FBI transcript, what transpires is a tense and chilling docu-drama, anchored by a virtuoso performance from Sydney Sweeney (The White Lotus, Euphoria) as Reality.
Adapted from her 2019 stage play Is This A Room, co-writer directer Tina Satter’s powerful debut feature is a gripping depiction of the gruelling interrogation Reality underwent at the hands of Agent Garrick (Josh Hamilton) and Agent Taylor (Marchant Davis). The three leads enact every stutter, um and cough outlined in the transcript, while every redacted sentence is portrayed by visual jump cuts or a character suddenly disappearing.
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