Reality: NZIFF Review

Euphoria and The White Lotus darling Sydney Sweeney stars in this thrilling look at Reality Winner, a US whistleblower who blew the lid on Russian interference in the 2016 US Elections.

Director Tina Satter brings a naturalism to the almost chamber-set proceedings as Sweeney's Winner is confronted by FBI agents on the porch of her home in Georgia one day after heading home.

Based on Is This a Room, Reality uses simple storytelling and a few cinematic digital tricks to bring out an edgy movie that feels unsettling as it unspools. With a pair of FBI agents (Josh Hamilton, Marchant Davis) questioning Reality in a seemingly innocuous way to begin with, Satter has an eye for keeping the motion going and a penchant for delivering jumps in the simplest of executions. 

From just a facial twitch to a quick movement, Reality's drama spins on its small moments, its subtleties caught out of time and in a lightning flash of political turmoil and rampant paranoia.

In amongst it all though is Sweeney, whose initially joyful tone seems to falter as the story unfolds, using dialogue from the actual recordings of the interview.  From looking intimidated to gradually becoming unsure, Sweeney's Reality Winner is a protagonist caught in the headlights as this never more than its play roots movie begins to hit a crescendo.

As the jumpier edges emerge from the filmmaking, in terms of its visual trickery and the way redacted information is treated, the movie starts to tighten its grip on both the audience and Winner.

It's a compelling watch, a chilling point-of-view film that takes one woman's fight against the system and those who work within it to its logical, terrifying extreme and denouement.