Unfolding in real time, Tina Satter's film directing debut peels back the layers that reveal why in 2017 FBI agents interrogated a perfectly ordinary girl working for the National Security Agency.
The social media profile of a young woman includes pictures of her pets, her friends, and her exercise routine. But on June 2, 2017, the posts come to an end. The film begins on the following day and contains verbatim dialogue from the unedited transcript of an FBI audio recording. The audience witnesses the protagonist Reality arriving at her home in Georgia, only to be met by two men outside who politely inform her that they have a search warrant. What follows is a chamber piece focusing on the interrogation of whistle-blower Reality Winner, the FBI agents becoming fleshy monoliths of state power in a game of cat and mouse.
"I hadn't known a ton about this until I stumbled upon the transcript. I had vaguely heard of her, and then on June 3, 2017, I came upon this article and the transcript, and I just got really intrigued with this complicated, amazing human that I was learning more about and who was coming out in my reading of the transcript. /.../ She's done things that hold so many different feelings, good and bad, but they were very human choices. It continues to be an honor to get to see a human being, having spent so much time thinking about her and working to make this portrayal of her." (Tina Satter)