Reality Winner is the name of a person imprisoned after leaking classified documents to the media. Reality is the name of an excellent 2023 movie about her arrest, taken from interview transcripts of the event. Winner is this 2024 film about her life, including an abridged re-enactment of her arrest, and her resulting jail time. Hope that clears it up.

So, yeah, Winner is a biopic of a rebellious girl who dares to learn a Middle Eastern language and how she’s recruited by the US Air Force to do translations. And, ultimately, how she discovers an article about Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election that the government denies.

This flick has an ironic jauntiness that was fun but felt like it needed to be about 25% more arch. It gets its point across but it also feels like it neeed to be about 25% more angry. I don’t know… I guess the problem is that it doesn’t quite pick a lane on how mad or amused I should feel about it.

But it was an entertaining watch and I can only guess how much of its even true. That’s what I liked about the earlier film though… its a literal re-enacted of the interrogation and arrest so, in theory, it’s literally what happened. There’s too many unknowns and uncertainties in this flick… as indicated by her in the closing narration.

I enjoyed this flick but I felt like I wanted to enjoy it more… or get more emotional about the events. Whether that’s cynical laughter or moral outrage, I don’t know.

Score: 84