Winner is a brilliant young misfit from Texas who finds her morals challenged while serving in the U.S. Air Force and working as an NSA contractor.
Chuck says:
On August 23, 2018, Reality Winner was sentenced to a term of incarceration lasting five years and three months for breaking the Espionage Acton of 1917. This was the longest sentence given to anyone convicted of disclosing classified information and if you happened to miss the story, you’re not alone. Though the government did not sweep this under the rug, they didn’t go out of their way to push the narrative in the media, as the Trump Administration was in no hurry to have the leaked document thrust into the spotlight. That it stated the then-president had many contacts with Vladimir Putin wouldn’t have looked good.
Susanna Fogel’s “Winner” examines how a young, idealistic woman from Texas came to be regarded as a traitor to her country. Using sardonic humor throughout, Kerry Howley’s script drills deep into the titular character’s past. An anomaly among her peers, thanks to her liberal, lay-about father (Zach Galifianakis), Winner (Emilia Jones, doing great work) is spurred to action after the 9/11 attacks. However, unlike her jingoistic neighbors, she wants to help the innocents caught in the crossfire, and begins to learn middle eastern languages, hoping one day to work as a translator.
As soon as she graduates from high school, she joins the Air Force, reasoning this would be the quickest way to realize her goal. However, she’s instead assigned to Fort Meade where she conducts surveillance on the Taliban, translating conversations and passing along any chatter that seems suspicious. Quicker than her co-workers, she’s eventually told she’s been responsible for over 600 casualties, men, women and children who were terminated due to the information she’s passed on.
Winner’s anguish over this is the film’s central conflict and becomes the viewers’ as well. Torn between a sense of loyalty to her country and her own sense of morality. Once she enters the private sector and gets access to reams of sensitive information, she struggles over just what the right thing to do is. Is it right to expose the government’s lies and abuses? Or do their ends justify the means of their aggression, heinous though they might be?
Winner’s idealism is consistent throughout but the means through which she practices it is problematic. No one can fault her for rescuing a neglected dog, but is she justified in putting the needs of others aside in the name of her own cause? Her boyfriend (Danny Ramirez) finds out the hard way, discovering her plans for a future are radically different from her own.
He’s just one of many who finds himself cast to the side as Winner pursues her righteous agenda, among them, her mother (Connie Britton) and sister (Kathryn Newton) as being criminally ignorant to the vagaries of the world. However, her father gets a free pass, having instilled the sense of outrage in his idealistic daughter. Their anger, as well as their sense of victimization, is what bonds them.
Arresting throughout, the film pulls no punches in the way the government deludes its citizens, counting on our complacency not to rock the boat. In no uncertain terms, “Winner” shows what happens to those independent thinkers who insist on asking pointed questions regarding thorny subjects. Dissent is not tolerated, as a good citizen is one that keeps their head down and minds their own business. Our silence is equated with consent, to our collective peril.
3 1/2 Stars
