Featured Image Credit: Reality / Euphoria
Topics: US News, Crime, Film and TV
Daisy Phillipson
Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney's new movie Reality has already landed a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score from the critics.
The directorial debut from Tina Satter is based on a true story, with Sweeney starring as American whistleblower Reality Winner.
Using the FBI's interrogation transcript, the film examines her arrest and how the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor was given her lengthly sentence for the unauthorised release of government information.
Advert
Winner was sentenced to five years behind bars in 2018 for leaking an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 US elections.
She was released early in June 2021 for good behaviour, with her attorney Alison Grinter Allen stating at the time: "We are relieved and hopeful.
"Her release is not the result of the pardon or compassionate release process, but rather the time earned through exemplary behaviour while incarcerated."
Anyone who's followed Sweeney's acting career will known that her portrayal as Winner is quite a departure from her previous roles.
And if the early reviews are anything to go by, she's absolutely nailed it.
The same goes for The Day Shall Come's Marchánt Davis and Eighth Grade's Josh Hamilton, who star alongside Sweeney as Agent Garrick and Agent Taylor, respectively.
Following its world premiere at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival on February 18, Reality has received praise from some of the top critics and earned a perfect 100 percent score on the Tomatometer.
Alongside the 25-year-old's performance, many highlighted Satter's mastery in creating a movie based on her critically acclaimed stage play about the same case called Is This a Room.
The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw described the movie as a 'brilliant piece of work', writing: "In its elegant simplicity, its formal daring and superbly subtle and controlled performances, Tina Satter’s movie is surely one of the best at the Berlin film festival."
Elsewhere, Variety's Jessica Kiang said Sweeney plays Winner so convincingly, 'it's hard to remember her as the sardonic, pampered teen in The White Lotus, or the nice-girl-turned-nasty in Euphoria'.
Deadline Writer Damon Wise added: "New York director Tina Satter first fashioned this transcript, with zero embellishment, into a critically acclaimed stage play called Is This a Room in 2019.
"And in Reality, which premiered in the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand, she expands it into an astonishingly effective docu-drama hybrid."
With Reality receiving such high praise across the board, this is definitely one to watch when it drops later this year.
Unfortunately there's no official release date or trailer just yet, so we'll just have to keep an eye out for updates in the coming weeks.