Did the powers that be at Warner Bros. Discovery actually anticipate the 37-count indictment against Donald Trump or was it just one of those lightning in a bottle moments that works where life imitates art sometimes. Remember how the Three Mile Island incident happened shortly after The China Syndrome came out? Or how Wag the Dog was in theaters with the Monica Lewinsky scandal made news in the Winter of 1998?
Reality premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in Febrary before it was acquired by HBO Films. The movie is directed and co-written by Tina Satter based on her play Is This a Room based on the interview/interrogation conducted by FBI agents the day they arrested Reality Winner. The titular character is played by Sydney Sweeney with a timid unease and nervousness that makes us sympathetic toward her even if we don’t agree with what she did.
The movie begins with Reality sitting at her job at a National Security Agency office watching news footage of the firing of former FBI Director James Comey by former President Trump. Then, we cut to early June less than four weeks later as Reality is returning to her house in Augusta, Ga., after a trip to the store. She doesn’t even have time to get out of the car before FBI Agent Justin C. Garrick (Josh Hamilton) taps on her window. Dressed in khakis and a short-sleeved lime green buttoned-down shirt, he doesn’t look lke an agent.
Before Reality knows what’s happening, his partner, R. Wallace Taylor (Marchant Davis), appears next to him and “Joe” (Benny Elledge), who is referred to as “Unknown Male,” pulls up in a black SUV blocking Reality in her drive. They present their IDs and begin to question her. But their questions have an unease about them as Reality can sense something is up. She never really asks why they’re there. Because they all know why they’re there.
Reality printed out a copy, one page, of confidential information, and mailed it to The Intercept anonymously. Garrick assures her they’re getting a search warrant that should be coming any minute as more agents arrive to search her house. Reality isn’t read her Miranda rights nor does she ask or is told she can speak to a lawyer. Garrick looks like he should be leading a Vacation Bible Study class instead of an investigation. Taylor is black and wears a pull-over golf shirt that looks a little too small as folds his arms showing off his muscles.
The FBI knew exactly what they were doing. There’s no woman agent among the ones there. Reality wants them to allow her to put her dog in a caged-in area. She’s nervous for her pets. She has a cat that will probably stay under the bed, she tells them, but she’s anxious about them leaving the door open. Reality shouldn’t have said anything. She should’ve asked to see a lawyer, but there’s something off about Taylor as he looks intimidating. He and Garrick are playing a good cop/bad cop routine.
In less than two hours, Reality lets them know what they want to know and is arrested with one lone woman agent patting her down before placing her in cuffs, also not reading her Miranda rights. Reality was an U.S. Air Force vet. There’s a good chance she knew that the FBI could stonewall her for a lot longer if she tried to lawyer up. It’s a real shameful look at our law enforcement as Reality goes to a mostly vacant back room as she is pressured by Garrick and Taylor into confessing on a recording device.
Reality was only 25 when she arrested. But even through the questioning, both Garrick and Taylor are amazed at the fact she can speak many languages and is heavily involved into crossfit. There’s an unease Satter, as a first-time director, does wonderfully. She filmed all interior scenes in order. The movie is only 82 minutes with credits but it seems longer mainly because as she stands in the room with the agents more or less blocking her from leaving, it feels longer.
Less than two weeks after Reality premiered, Trump was indicted. People are defending him but calling her one of the worst. She was charged and convicted under the Espionage Act for one document she was able to smuggle out folded in her pantyhose. She was denied bailed and served four years and is still on supervised released until November of 2024. See a double standard here?
Reality says she was contract working in the Augusta area and had applied for another job. That’s why she thought the FBI showed up. That’s what she says. But did she know that they would’ve called first if it was just a job interview? No one can criticize Satter for presenting a narrative. She took the play and script word-for-word from the interview conducted with a notable distortion in the movie whenver something redacted is referenced.
Reality leaked a document report that indicated that Russian hackers accessed voter registration rolls in the United States with an email phishing operation. Satter includes news footage, mostly from conservative right-wing media denouncing everything about Reality. But anyone who remembers when Scooter Libby leaked information about CIA agent Valerie Plame and how everyone defended him? Why? Her husband at the time, Joe Wilson, wrote an op-ed article for the New York Times criticized the Bush/Cheney administration’s claim that Saddam Hussein was trying to obtain yellowcake uranium.
Now, we all know Wilson was write and everyone else in the Bush/Cheney administration was wrong. But people felt Libby was doing was important at the time. And the man was pardoned by, survey says, Trump in 2018. Can you imagine how the right-wing media and politicians will shit eggrolls if Joe Biden pardon Reality?
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican, went on CBS This Morning and says it will hurt the country to prosecute Trump. He tried to downplay it and reverting back to Hillary Clinton and the e-mail server. So, Reality isn’t as important as Trump? That’s what we’re telling people. As of this posting, Trump is still walking free. He wasn’t taken into custody. Yet, Reality leaked one document and she spent four years incarcerated.
Hamilon and Davis have the difficult task of playing characters you really don’t like. Maybe because Hamilton has played these type of characters before where he looks like he’s getting read to stab you in the back. Davis has a more difficult job. He’s meant to play up the black intimidating African-American guy. You could say the FBI used him as well to get what they want.
Reality is an appropriate title. It shows we live in a double standard where the rules don’t apply for some. And while the government should be more concerned about foreign influence in general elections, they’re upset over Reality for showing there was an investigation. Maybe they knew that Reality was just telling us what we already knew. We want it to be wrong but we don’t want it to be right.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 