Film Review – WINNER (2024): Whistleblower Reality Winner Gets the Bubblegum Biopic Treatment

Winner Review

Winner (2024) Film Review, a movie directed by Susanna Fogel, written by Susanna Fogel, Kerry Howley and starring Emilia Jones, Connie Britton, Zach Galifianakis, Kathryn Newton, Danny Ramirez, Shannon Berry, and Kristian Jordan.

Life remains stranger than fiction in Susanna Fogel’s new film, Reality. Whistle-blower Reality Winner (yes, that’s actually her name) is the subject of Fogel’s well-handled biopic that follows her from her upbringing in a small Texas town to an NSA agent who leaked documents about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. It’s a film that handles the subject matter and lead character with inquisitive but soft hands while giving her the Hollywood biopic makeover with the voiceover to boot.

The film tells a fictionalized version of Reality Winner’s life from her modest Texas upbringing, being raised by two very different parents, her leftist dad Ron (a really strong Zach Galifianakis role) and her breadwinner mother Billie (an equally strong Connie Britton). From the onset of the film, we are shown that reality isn’t like other girls. She doesn’t care about boys, speaks her mind about important socio-political topics, and began learning Arabic languages before she reached middle school. It isn’t until a headhunter for the Air Force convinces Reality to join that her path becomes clear. Translating for the Air Force is all well and good, but when she gets the chance at a high-paying job with the NSA, reality jumps on it. It’s there that she is met with a philosophical conundrum of releasing confidential documents to the world or doing her job.

Winner is a biopic that hits all the beats. The stakes are high, but the drama is soapy. Fogel’s adaptation of this real-life story differs dramatically from the stomach-churning tension in Tina Satter’s film, Reality from last year. A film that introduced me to the story of Reality Winner and uses dialogue lifted directly from her arresting transcript to tell the story. That film digs itself into realism and dread. Winner makes us laugh along the way while looking at the woman behind the crime. Where Reality turns the volume down to make the viewer feel every passing second, Winner puts us back in our childhood bedroom with the boombox on full blast.

With a lesser cast, this film might have faltered in several scenes where it excelled. Her parents are loving, likeable, and actually interesting. Like our main character, they are multi-dimensional and add texture and layers to the story, and more importantly, our lead character. In another world, Kathryn Newton, who plays Reality’s sister, would have been cast as the titular role, but she’s dynamite as the goody-two-shoes sister. If Reality is a language geek pursuing a career in the military, Brittany is the cheerleading type who wants to get married before she has sex. They feel real as a family because they are individually different but still love each other unconditionally.

While it’s not a perfect film, it is enjoyable. The voiceover does get a little too Hollywood. Let’s put it this way: never once do you doubt that you are watching a film. Not an insult, but an observation. In addition to directing the film, Fogel also has a screenwriting credit alongside Kerry Howley. Both do a good job telling the human side of Reality Winner’s story. Between her unique name and the strange, extremely serious crime she commits, it can distract from the fact that she has a past.

Winner isn’t a film that is going to blow your doors off, but I don’t think it wants to. It toes a difficult line between comedy, drama, and biopic that not many films can do, and that deserves some merit in its own right.

Rating: 6/10

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