Reality

On a Saturday afternoon in June 2017, Reality Leigh Winner (Sydney Sweeney), an unassuming 25-year-old, is confronted at her Georgia home by two FBI officers (Josh Hamilton and Marchánt Davis) with a search warrant; a National Security Agency contractor, Winner leaked confidential information about the US government’s knowledge of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

What transpires is a model of dramatic economy as director Tina Satter, adapting her play Is This a Room, uses the verbatim transcript of Winner’s arrest and questioning as the basis for the film, the dialogue taken from the officer’s audio recordings. The narrative conceit lends an uncanny edge to proceedings, the unscripted exchanges becoming surreal in the claustrophobic confines of Winner’s modest home, as the incessant needling from her interrogators slowly breaks down her initially implacable resolve.