Reality: The True Story Behind HBO's New Thriller
In the past several decades, a number of noteworthy government whistleblowers have made headlines by leaking classified information to the media. But in 2017, a linguist contractor for the National Security Agency/Air Force by the name of Reality Leigh Winner received the longest imposed sentence for divulging national secrets.
She is now the subject of the Max film "Reality," starring Sydney Sweeney as the titular character, who released revealing documents pertaining to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election to the news site The Intercept — and subsequently earned herself five years and three months in federal prison.
The film is based on the stage play "Is This a Room," constructed largely from the transcript of Reality Winner's FBI interrogation. Winner spoke with the production crew extensively amidst imprisonment and a subsequent house arrest, even going so far as to video-call into the opening night performance's Broadway curtain call. Earning solid reviews, Deadline's Greg Evans called it "impeccable drama."
"We were all like, we think this can hold," playwright Tina Satter told NPR in 2021 of the unorthodox adaptation of her source material. "We almost treated it like Shakespeare. Like it was canonical."
Now, Satter is making her feature directorial debut with the film version of the play, and Sweeney is extending herself beyond Cassie from "Euphoria" by leaning into the meaty role.
Reality Winner leaked information about Russian interference
Satter was inspired to take on the project after reading a New York Magazine profile on Reality Winner with the colorful title "The World's Biggest Terrorist Has a Pikachu Bedspread." It detailed how, in 2017, the linguist had come across a document proving that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 election. Questioning why information of such relevance was being kept from the general public, Winner made her fateful decision.
Although the report was labeled as top secret, Winner smuggled it out of the building and mailed it to The Intercept. The outlet published an article based largely on that report, detailing Russia's attempts to hack into U.S. voting systems using a phishing scam.
A scandal and ensuing investigation ultimately brought the FBI to Winner's doorstep, and "Reality" explores the intense sequence of events that followed, leading to a confession of her involvement. Like the play, the film clocks in under an hour and a half and is set almost entirely in one location. The viewer is put through the same experience — asides and all — as the title character, experiencing the anxiety, awkwardness and ultimate breakthroughs of the interview process.
"My main concern is I never want it to feel like it's jumping around in time," Satter told The New Yorker about the unusual, near-clinical structure. "If you are totally cold to the text, you might not understand it is sequential."
"I think that's [the FBI agent's] technique," she added. "To slowly disorient her, to keep the pressure on, to ask so many questions."