Where I Watched It: MAX
English Audio Description provided By: point360
Narrated By: Tanzi Alexander
Reality is boring. That’s why we choose escapism whenever we can, because reality can be very monotonous. It’s why there isn’t a real-time DMV movie. Just a guy waiting for his number to be called so he can get his Driver’s License renewed. We instead read books, that even when they are non-fiction, still seem more interesting than our daily lives, and watch television and movies that take us anywhere but here. Reality is not just the name of a character, but a promise that this will be as boring as your life is.
Sydney Sweeney plays Reality, a former intelligence officer who still had some access to files when she found some troubling government documents about the 2016 election and then released them online. She’s the Snowden you never heard of. And her movie is boring. Sorry, but it is. It’s also the easiest thing to direct, or act in. It’s a lot of standing around while people search her house, she’s asked some questions, and she’s worried about her pets.
The most exciting moments come in the few times she’s not standing around, like when she gets to put her dog in an outdoor kennel area, or they allow her to put away groceries. A fair chunk of the film takes place in one room for the big interrogation between Reality and the leading agent (played by josh Hamilton).
Because they rarely move or go anywhere, and no one changes clothes, Tanzi Alexander takes time to really let you know as much about this movie in audio description as possible. At times, I thought she might start describing the weather, or the sky color. Things we never typically even think about because they are on the fringe of “need to know”. i think we assume the sky is blue, or we don’t care unless the film is about a storm. but, as this film goes nowhere, and nothing changes, we could ahve found out cloud patterns.
I’m about to give props to the dialogue, except a lot of it is just lifted straight from the actual transcripts. So, it’s not really dialog in the traditional sense, but a staging of something that actually happened. It’s a reenactment. The most interesting thing in the film is during these sequences, the director has to modify the soundtrack when Reality says something that was redacted. So you get a tiny foghorn like sound when that happens.
I didn’t know who Reality was before this, or even her trial. This movie was the least interesting way to introduce me to her. Luckily, it’s really short, like under 90 minutes.But, I’m still not sure why this was the chosen route for her story. All it reminded me was that in reality, FBI raids are really dull.
But, tons of props to Point360 and Alexander for making the most out of a film where they never change location, everyone is in modern clothes and never changes them, and they spend the final third of the movie in one room with virtually nothing i it. They found every facial expression possible to describe, and I loved their description.
Final Grade: C-