Director: Gavin Hood
Genre: Drama/
Thriller
Runtime: 112
minutes
Year:
2019
Starring: Keira
Knightley, Matt Smith, Ralph Fiennes, Matthew Goode, Rhys Ifans, Conleth Hill,
Jeremy Northam
Description: The true
story of a British whistleblower (Keira Knightley) who leaked information to
the press about an illegal NSA spy operation designed to push the UN Security
Council into sanctioning the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Review: “Official Secrets” tells the true story of whistleblower Katharine Gun,
who worked for the British intelligence agency GCHQ in 2003. Not as a senior
officer, but simply as a office worker with the task of listening to recorded
Chinese phone calls for indications of possible attacks. In this respect, her
work does not seem to be very different from the practices that Edward Snowden
would later warn about. But she has no problem with a government that keeps an
eye on its citizens in order to pick out the rotten apples. Her moral objections
arise only with appearance of an internal memo stating that the British
organization should assist its American counterparts at the NSA in gathering blackmailable
information about UN member states that are obstructionist in supporting a
resolution for the impending Iraq war. A shadowy favor to strengthen transatlantic
ties.
Katharine passes the
information on to the press through some intermediaries, after which some
journalists from The Observer start working on it. This Sunday paper has
already come out in favor of military intervention in Iraq, but the
old-fashioned editor-in-chief lets his journalistic instincts do the talking;
it’s a damn good story and it’s okay for politicians to back off. One would hope
that this would also be the case with less strong stories, but it has to be
done. At that point “Official Secrets” briefly becomes a variation on “All the
President’s Men”, resulting in a nicely self-conscious remark when a journalist
meets his contact in an underground parking garage: “This is a bit Deep Throat,
isn’t it?” But the reason turns out to be simple: there is no cell phone coverage
here.
Perhaps even more than
Katharine, the story is central. For while we get a glimpse into the world of
the British press, Katharine is absent for some time. She sits in silent fear,
waiting to see what will happen with the leaked information. We only see her
again when she discovers that the story ends up on the front page of The
Observer. But with that, it comes back to her. Because her bosses know immediately
that someone leaked the information. An internal investigation is launched, but
Katharine keeps the credit to herself and turns herself in. The consequences
are dire: she is fired, publicly branded a spy and indicted for her actions.
The charge of espionage is
an interesting one. In the traditional sense, that word denotes the passing of
sensitive information to a hostile party or country. But Katharine merely rang
the bell about the internal malfeasance of a government agency. Because her
contract prohibits the disclosure of state-sensitive information, she is liable
for punishment, but that does raise the question of how you then hold a
government accountable when it does not follow the rules. After all, a
government does not work for itself or for friendly nations, but for the
people. Katharine is sued and thus needs legal defense. But just when that
seems to be settled, it is made clear to her that discussing the information
passe on with her lawyers is also a breach of her contract. By joining the
government, she has given up virtually all of her right.
But in the end, every viewer
knows how this ends: that war just happened. Katharine suffers that loss early
on in the film, and this tragedy constantly reverberates. “Official Secrets”
thus outlines a system in which the government has become so disconnected from
its own riles that nor even the truth can intervene. It is therefore no
coincidence that the law under which Katharine is charged was only introduced after
and earlier whistleblower could not be legally prosecuted. “Official Secrets”
manages to make this a highly entertaining ‘David-against-Goliath’ tale, which
nicely shows that Goliath, in the form of the British government, conspicuously
often uses pure bluff poker. Apparently a winning strategy, because despite all
that Katharine had to endure, she was unable to stop the Iraq War (or British involvement
in it). At least we got a great movie out of it.
Rating: 4,5/
5
