WINNER – Review by April Neale
The new film, Winner, is a fascinating and entertaining look at Middle Eastern language savant Reality Winner’s (Emilia Jones) unlikely trajectory from Texas schoolgirl to imprisoned veteran accused of espionage during the Trump reign. Susanna Fogel, director and co-writer of this biopic, has a thing for social justice warriors (Miep Gies’ story in A Small Light). Fogel’s directing technique and the co-written script remind us with powerful visuals that the government has ultimate power over us all and that justice is a slippery slope based on who you know and how much cash you have to pay good lawyers.
Now, the annoying aspect of all this “reality” is that the former president, whose administration went Draconian over people accused of national security leaks, danced around top secret document protocols. We all know about the sloppy cache of highly classified American security secrets stored inside the gilded Mar A Lago lavatory.
In real life, Reality Winner was sentenced in 2018 to more than five years on a single count of transmitting national security information. This verdict was the longest federal prison sentence imposed for leaks to the media. Trump has yet to serve anything except himself.
The drama begins as Winner, an Air Force veteran and military contractor, saw some truth about Russian interference in her classified files that she felt needed to be out there to counter what the media was pumping to the opposite, spewed mainly by the propaganda of FOX and the Trump administration. We also know today that it is a fact that the Russian government interfered and continues to do so in the American presidential elections, past and present.
However, Reality’s unwavering commitment to her beliefs and relentless fight for justice led her to be caught in the unforgiving net of the Espionage Act. In June 2017, she printed out a top-secret document on the NSA office printer and mailed it to ‘The Intercept,’ a move that would change her life forever.
And, as bright as she is, the act she did was likely a “suicide by cop” move in that Reality knew she was going to be found out, and boy, was it swift.
Jones delivers a powerful performance as Reality, portraying her as a complex individual with a quirky set of values and interests. The film’s co-writer, Kerry Howley, interviewed Winner, and that insight provides us with a percolating ‘how I got here’ script and chain of events told backward, showing off the supporting cast. The casting and the chemistry make this biopic soar, much like Scorsese’s film Goodfellas did with its phenomenal cast who filled the screen in the rise and fall of Henry Hill.
Kudos to the superb work Zach Galifianakis turns in as her father, the other half of Reality’s tribe of two, and the man who gave her that stubborn streak when fighting for truth and principles. Her mother (Connie Britton) champions her hard-to-understand, intelligent daughter and gives us a complex look at a parent struggling to break through to a difficult child and always has their back. Sister Brittany (Kathryn Newton) also performs marvelously as a sister who loves her yet is entirely different in personality. The one love interest of Reality is also beautifully played by Danny Ramirez, who realizes Reality’s mono focus has no room to accommodate a second person.
Ultimately, the film is a thought-provoking exploration of the consequences of challenging authority. It reminds us that while fighting for justice is important, it’s crucial to pick our battles wisely and consider the potential impact on our lives. Reality did the time, and now we can relive the crime by watching a former president wiggle around our country’s laws.
