REALITY: An Underrated Gem

Proving to be much more than a simple exercise in gimmick filmmaking, Tina Satter’s Reality is a competently designed narrative that swims in a lake of muddy realism. Anchored by Sydney Sweeney’s understated performance, the film details the arrest of National Security Agency translator, Reality Winner, who famously leaked information about potential Russian interference during the United States election in 2016. With a script based off the actual transcripts of her interactions with FBI agents, Reality is a fully realized imagining of these exact words. Working within the confines of what was actually said and done, Satter still manages to create emotional aptitude in what could have been a rather stale true crime story. This is undoubtedly one of the more underrated films of 2023.

More than just a gimmick

Adapting her own stage play, Is This a Room, Satter finds herself transforming a story that really feels better suited as a theatrical production. Like many other single setting, dialogue-dependent narratives, Reality often feels like a stripped down version of what the cinematic medium is able to offer. There’s also an added layer of difficulty for Satter since the film’s dialogue comes directly from the FBI’s actual transcripts, limiting her creative license on the story. Yet, she’s able to inject a level of emotional tension that seers through each scene, amplifying real life interactions that might otherwise feel flat.

At its core, Reality offers a dramatic take on real events through purposeful staging, discrete camera angles and a phenomenally retrained performance by Sweeney to underscore the social and gender dynamics straining the entire interrogation process. The inferred biases from the transcripts – if one were to presumably read them – are most certainly displayed through Satter’s creative choices. These choices add weight and subtext to the film, while maintaining a level of objectivity through its suspenseful ambiance. When the film does quiet down, its hallow shades are clearly intentional, meant to mirror the moments of emptiness experienced by Winner during the actual events. Every decision is apt and thoughtful, and clearly indicative of a smart filmmaker.

Fact versus fiction – does it really matter?

The genius of Reality comes from Satter’s added subjectivity to an adaptation process, that on paper at least, is meant to serve as a lens of clear objectivity. Despite being restricted by its factually accurate transcribed dialogue, there’s still a sense of mystery around certain elements of the story. Part of this stems from the dialogue itself, where an expected level of tempered concealment was likely displayed by all parties involved. And a bigger part stems from Satter’s ability to really put the squeeze on these uncertain truths, and in doing so, indirectly questioning the utility of one’s words. 

The idea of what’s real and what’s fabricated, even through an unaltered word-for-word reenactment (minus the redacted omissions), ends up losing focus as the film’s centrepiece. Instead, the limitations of words as a vessel of the truth becomes the overarching thesis of the film. It’s an interesting take that comes unexpectedly for a narrative that naturally leans on the shoulders of objectivity in the most obvious way possible.

Conclusion

Had Reality been released today, in the wake of Sweeney’s escalating popularity, it likely would have attracted more eyeballs to what is truly a fascinating film. Satter’s dissection of fact versus fiction, reality versus lies, is a poignant example of how a creative approach to filmmaking can elevate a seemingly restrictive gimmick. This is a fantastic and truly invigorating debut that deserved way more attention than it unfortunately got.