'Reality' plays like a queasy, disturbing thriller

Reality Winner (Sydney Sweeney) returns home from her job as a translator for an NSA contractor to find two FBI agents (Josh Hamilton, Marchánt Davis) questioning her about a leak from the facility she works at. Though at first receptive and open to their questions, their pressure soon becomes clear as Reality's life is about to dramatically change...

There's so much about 'Reality' that feels like it's written specifically for this moment, and for how it's played. It's a small movie. There's a total of maybe four actors in it altogether, it's set almost entirely inside a crappy little house in Nowhere, America, and its script and dialogue is based solely on recorded audio from the actual event it's dramatising. The only time 'Reality' veers away is when it tries to dig at what Reality might have been thinking in key moments. Moreover, when aspects of the transcripts have been redacted, the movie glitch-jumps right past it. In other moments, Reality disappears from the screen entirely.

It all adds up to this feeling of queasiness and unease about the whole thing. As it turns out, the FBI agents on the day never read Reality her Miranda rights, the manner in which they were informed of her leaking is entirely suspect, and to make it even more queasy, she's a young woman alone in a house of men rifling through her things while she's brought into an empty room and repeatedly asked questions.

Sydney Sweeney's ability to completely deflate herself under questioning is remarkable. You're able to fully grasp the character through her performance, by how she dresses, by how she carries herself, and how she looks just totally uncomfortable in her own skin. Marchánt Davis and Josh Hamilton, the two FBI agents who question her, are equally potent in their roles. Hamilton, the elder of the two, initially begins like some kind of overly-paternalistic neighbour and engages in empty chit-chat as the questions begin while Marchánt Davis seems a lot more focused and poised. Of course, as the questions continue, you begin to realise that both of them seem almost out of their depth with what's in front of them.

Adapted from her play titled 'Is This A Room', Tina Satter's direction is clear and lucid. The camera is always just a few inches from Sweeney's face, capturing every minute twitch and tic, and the sickly fluorescent lighting just adds to the sense of tension. Satter also effectively uses flashbacks - just the one, mind - to her crap office job and the constant assault of Fox News in the background. Because it's all in real-time and using the actual transcript from her arrest, there's very little need for narrative arcs or any kind of embellishment for it. Moreover, it wouldn't be the same movie if it had any of these. The spartan way in which Reality lived her life is reflected in Satter's creative choices. It's always the most obvious, clear-headed one that's made - almost like how Reality Winner herself felt it entirely necessary and correct to send the document to the Intercept as a means of countering the incessant bullshit she saw and heard on Fox News.

At just under 83 minutes, 'Reality' refuses to eulogise its central character - bar a perfunctory statement at the end of the movie detailing her life following the arrest, and the impact of her leaking of the documents. It offers no judgment about her choices, but instead lets the facts and reality itself speak in volumes instead. At a time when the truth seems like it's being assaulted daily and narrative is spoonfed to audiences, 'Reality' trusts those who watch it to parse fact from fiction and assess what it's been shown.