[imagesource:hbo]

Sydney Sweeney wowed the world with her roles in Euphoria and The White Lotus, even though her characters weren’t that deep.

I guess her beauty was beholden, but now, thanks to her new role “as a woman caught in a nerve-wracking mess of her own making”, she’s being recognised for her talent and capacity as a “powerhouse lead”.

In writer/director Tina Satter’s HBO film adaptation of her Broadway play Is This a Room? about a whistleblower on the cusp of arrest, Sweeney becomes Reality Winner, a 25-year-old US Air Force member and NSA translator who leaked government intel disclosing Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

As The Daily Beast notes, the name of the movie – Reality – is a reference to both the name of its protagonist and the nature of its tale, “a stagey dramatisation about the flimsy line separating truth from lies, honour from treachery”.

For her whistleblowing crime, the real Reality received the longest sentence ever imposed for the unauthorised release of government information to the media – just over five years in prison. The film steers clear of tackling Trump’s victory and voter data harvesting, though, instead focusing on the human element, notes The Big Issue.

Reality unfolds in real-time as FBI agents Wally (Marchánt Davis) and Justin (Josh Hamilton) bear down on her in conversational but firm tones.

Sweeney was keen to show that behind the complex discussion surrounding what Winner leaked, the agency of a young woman choosing to alter the trajectory of her life was most compelling:

“Tina wanted to show the surreal and in-real-time calculations that Reality had to go through for this life-changing moment, instead of making it a headline or about a political party,” she explains.

“It was me being able to amplify what Reality went through in that moment. All that weight you felt was truly just me living in it.”

Have a look at the trailer:

While reviews are praising Sweeney’s excellent acting, capturing the sheer anxiety of a woman on the verge of arrest, there was only one reaction to Reality that proved Sweeney’s abilities.

At the film’s Berlin premiere, Sweeney clocked Winner’s real mother and sister sitting behind her. “Towards the end of the movie, her mom leaned over and grabbed my shoulders, just crying. She said that she just gained a daughter and she truly saw her daughter on screen. That was the most moving, powerful thing that someone could say to me.”

Realising who was sitting behind might have been more terrifying than any FBI interrogation; “I definitely took a very big inhale”, she admitted.

Reality is available for streaming on Max starting today, May 29.

[sources:dailybeast&thebigissue]