Given its subject matter, it’s particularly poignant to watch this now as Donald Trump has just won the election to once again become the president of the United States. This short film effectively consists of just one extended scene in which FBI agents arrive at the home of Reality Winner, a US Air Force veteran and translator for the NSA, and interrogate her. All dialogue is taken from the recording made by the FBI itself, with portions redacted as per the transcript. It’s remarkable how much tension director Tina Satter was able to inject into the material and it works especially well if you have no idea who Reality Winner is before watching this.

Returning home after shopping for groceries, Winner is intercepted in her car by two men who identify themselves as FBI agents. They claim that they have a warrant to search her house and her belongings, though they don’t actually show her the document. She warily cooperates with them and is prevented from entering her home. As more FBI agents arrive, she seems more concerned for her pet dog and cat. The agents allow her to move her dog outside as she continues to seem unaware of why she is being questioned. Eventually she agrees to an interview with the first two agents in an unused room of the house. The conversations reveal that she is a translator who specializes in Persian languages and has a top secret security clearance. They quiz her about possible abuses of her access and she admits to only a minor mistake in printing out a document and accidentally taking it out of the NSA office. Slowly the agents narrow their questions down to what they are really interested in, Winner’s frustration about the election of Donald Trump. It turns out that she printed out and sent an NSA article about Russian interference in US elections to the news website The Intercept.

I did read about this news item at the time but by the time I watched this film I’d forgotten the details. The unusual name of the key person involved makes this even more confusing though using it for the title is a clever double entendre. Even so, the FBI agents graciously explain what they’re really after in straightforward terms and the dramatic redactions from the transcript are swept away soon enough. What makes this treatment and the live performance it was originally staged as work so well is Winner’s willingness to submit to questioning. So the entire thing is effectively one long scene that takes place almost in real time. This wouldn’t have been possible if she had stopped the proceedings to ask for a lawyer or insisted that the interview take place at the FBI’s office. Though she tries being evasive at first, once she becomes convinced that the FBI already knew everything, she practically admits to everything outright. It’s bad for her from a legal standpoint and the FBI seems to have erred as well by not reading her her Miranda rights. But it allows Satter to set the scene and arrive at the resolution in one neat package.

The film actually works better if the viewer is at least only vaguely aware of the facts of the case beforehand. The FBI agents never stop smiling and are always professional but they never stop being faintly menacing either. Even as they try to accommodate Winner’s pet dog and cat, they are always very careful never to let her touch her own phone or anything in her house. It’s very satisfying as a procedural as well as you can see all of the little details about how the agents operate, including being sure that two agents have their eyes on Winner at all times. I don’t really have much to say about the moral dimensions of the case. While the revelations about Russian interference are important, they don’t seem significant enough to warrant breaking US laws to expose. Subsequent events have shown that the American public don’t really think that it’s that important either as they voted for Trump anyway. The real failure to me that The Intercept utterly failed in their responsibility to protect the whistleblower and all but exposed her identity to the government but that isn’t the subject of this particular film.

Satter naturally sympathizes with Winner and wants to point out the hypocrisy of punishing her severely for her actions while using the document she leaked on the Senate floor. I’m less convinced of her idealism and more persuaded by the FBI agents saying that this was a singular act made out of frustration about ongoing political developments. I do feel sad for Winner that she got out of prison at just about the right time to watch Trump win the election again. Still this is an impactful film that all the more impressive for how few moving parts it is made out of.