IN MOST THRILLERS it is easy to distinguish between the virtuous and the villainous. Towards the political end of the genre, however, the line becomes blurred. Tales of anti-government whistleblowers, which hinge on keystrokes rather than killings, epitomise this tension. Someone who breaks the law in service of a broader justice makes for a complicated protagonist. In a drama that creates a compelling character, such as the rogue cop of “Luther”, the BBC ’s detective thriller. But in stories based on real life, portraying the person behind intelligence leaks as evidently good or bad—and therefore one viewers can get behind or not—means taking a political stance.
In the film, Ms Winner comes off as both sophisticated and childish. She is an air-force veteran who speaks three languages and owns three guns (one of which is a pink AR-15 rifle), yet sleeps under a Pikachu duvet and wears yellow Converse with no laces. Infuriated by Mr Trump repeatedly dismissing allegations of Russian hacking—and by Fox News blaring re-runs of him above her cubicle at work—Ms Winner felt the world needed to know what she had seen on the NSA intranet. The film inches towards her confession, which comes a full hour in, told to a pair of detectives in an empty back room of her suburban home.
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