Plot: Based on a true story, Reality Winner is a brilliant young misfit from a Texas border town who loves her pink gun almost as much as helping others. After teaching herself Arabic in high school so she can be of service in the Middle East, Reality is recruited by the Air Force but quickly becomes disillusioned when she finds her morals challenged. After transitioning to a money gig as an NSA contractor, Reality stumbles upon government secrets regarding Russia’s election hacking during the 2016 Presidential campaign. Does she expose the truth or keep quiet? Ultimately, she decides to leak the truth, which leads to her trial and historic sentencing for espionage.
Review: Winner is the second film in the last two years based on the true story of Reality Winner. The uniquely named whistleblower who leaked classified documents confirming Russian interference in American elections, Winner’s story was previously told in the film Reality starring Sydney Sweeney. Based on a stage play, that film used the recorded interrogation of the suspect upon her arrest for violating the Espionage Act. It focused on a very specific part of her life. A dark and serious film, Reality exists in stark contrast to Susanna Fogel’s Winner, which takes a more comedic tone to deliver a biopic that pulls in the subject’s childhood and life, leading to her decision to break the law as a holistic look at how she reached her fateful decision in 2017. Winner is a funny film that some may find offputting based on the subject matter, yet it still delivers a message about doing what is right even when the stakes are high. Boasting another stellar performance from Emilia Jones, Winner is somewhat uneven in its tone but still manages to live up to its title.
Using a darkly comedic approach like Craig Gillespie’s I, Tonya, and Adam McKay’s Vice, Winner opens with a voice-over from Reality Winner (Emilia Jones) as she is led away in handcuffs. Her narration then takes us back to her childhood living with her social worker mother, Billie (Connie Britton), unemployed father Ron (Zach Galifianakis), and older sister Brittany (Kathryn Newton). While Billie and Brittany are more traditional, Reality follows her father’s more political worldview, which is shaken during the events of September 11, 2001. As she grows up disillusioned with politics, Reality is recruited to join the Air Force, where she can learn more about the languages and people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and beyond. A quick learner and natural polyglot, Reality becomes adept at translation but becomes divided when she sees the drone-strike outcome of what her skills lead to. A natural defender of those who need defending, Reality struggles with doing what is right and doing what she is good at.
Throughout Winner, Emilia Jones imbues Reality with a whipsmart ability to backtalk and put people in their place while trying to figure out how to stick to her personal ethics. Reality struggles with relationships with anyone other than her father, who suffers from a debilitating addiction to painkillers. At one point, she maintains an ongoing romantic relationship with Andre (Danny Ramirez), giving her some semblance of normalcy. Both Jones and Ramirez make for a charismatic couple, but it is Reality’s desire to always do more for those who cannot do for themselves that prevents her from settling down. Galifianakis, Connie Britton, and Kathryn Newton are good in their limited supporting roles, which sometimes feel like cliche family characters rather than fully developed supporting players. There are even a few moments where Reality does something inappropriate or radical, and her family is given close-ups as they smile and shake their heads. The only thing missing from these scenes is the line “Oh, Reality!” which would make them cringeworthy.
Where Winner may rub audiences the wrong way is with the levity of the film itself. There are many moments, both during Reality’s time as an enlisted soldier and her opinions after the fact, that some could construe her as anti-military. There are mild jabs at Fox News, both in the actual footage from the cable network and in excerpts from interviews with both Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The timing of the film’s release comes at the heart of another divisive election cycle. There will be outspoken commentary that this movie is decidedly on one end of the political spectrum. In reality, pun intended, this is a fairly apolitical film that sets out to defend truth and justice, not a specifically conservative or liberal ideology. But, by taking a comedic vantage, Winner feels like something we have seen often over the last few decades from indie filmmakers aiming to deliver anti-establishment characters with sharp dialogue and quirky sensibilities. You cannot get much quirkier than a character named Reality Winner, and I think the filmmakers took that to heart.
Based on her own New York Magazine article titled “Who is Reality Winner?”, Winner‘s screenplay was scripted by Kerry Howley alongside director Susanna Fogel. While Howley has a resume full of articles and interviews surrounding political figures and current events, this is a unique project for Fogel. Having co-written Olivia Wilde’s acclaimed Booksmart and directed the action-comedy The Spy Who Dumped Me, Fogel reunites with Emilia Jones from last year’s festival hit Cat Person, also based on a well-received article. Fogel and Howley’s approach to the film version of this story should have worked had they stuck with it consistently throughout the film, but the shift between comedy and drama loses some of its balance in the film’s final act. By the time Reality is incarcerated for four years, the importance of the rest of the ensemble and their support for Reality seems disingenuous after how we have seen them for the first parts of the movie. The emotional moments in Winner feel a bit much, but they are well-acted by Galifianakis, Britton, and Newton.
Emilia Jones, who has proven herself to be one of the best actors working today, adds another excellent performance to her filmography alongside CODA, Cat Person, and Locke & Key. Her range is excellent, and she portrays Reality as a person with a larger-than-life name who is more grounded than you would imagine. While the tonal inconsistencies throw Winner off a bit, it is a fascinating companion to 2023’s Reality. Taken together, they give us a look at an average American who made a choice that altered quite a bit of what we know and trust about the government and foreign powers while doing so entertainingly. Winner may be considered inappropriate subject matter for a comedy, but it ends up worth watching for Emilia Jones’s performance alone. Whether you agree with what Reality Winner decided to do or are against it, you will likely learn more about why she did it when you check out this movie.