Reality is the first film to properly impress at the 2023 Berlinale as the festival progresses into its second day. The Tina Satter-directed feature, which plays in the Panorama strand at this year’s festival, uses transcribed FBI interviews for its dialogue and is an absolute masterclass in tension-building from all involved.
Based on true events, the film is essentially a chamber piece, the majority of the ‘action’ taking place in and around Reality Winner’s house as she is approached by two FBI agents, Taylor (Marchánt Davis) and Garrick (Josh Anderson). Winner was a member of the US Air Force before she turned to become a translator for the government; she is fluent in Farsi, Dari, and Pashto. The two agents inform Winner that they have the right to enter her house, her car and take her mobile phone as they have given a search warrant following a tip-off that she has leaked sensitive government documents to an online news outlet. Of course, the information surrounding what the FBI is looking for is slowly released to the viewer as the plot progresses, and despite a trim 86-minute running time, the film is in no rush with proceedings.
Sydney Sweeney plays the lead role of Winner, and she is excellent with a lot of her acting reactive rather than dialogue drive. Davis and Anderson are tasked with a lot of the dialogue, delivering the transcribed audio verbatim, often with repetitive lines, stuttering beats, and long pauses. Again, they are both brilliant, the performances naturalistic and nuanced.
At times it feels stagey – of course, this is adapted from the play ‘Is This a Room’, also by Satter – but she, along with co-writer James Paul Dallas adds cinematic elements to proceedings by Paul Yee’s brilliant cinematography, Ron Dulin and Jennifer Vecchiarello’s excellent editing, and Nathan Micay’s brooding, foreboding score, which always seems to be present in the background.
A real delight from start to finish, Reality is a great piece of storytelling told from a unique angle with everyone on top form from the off.
Reality was reviewed at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival.
Reality
Summary
A brilliant;y staged chamber piece and a great piece of real-life storytelling told from a unique angle.
