Official Secrets
Photo by Paramount Pictures. Catch Official Secrets in Berlin cinemas now!
Kiera Knightly is Katherine Gun, an earnest translator who works for the British secret service. When she intercepts a mail, a request from the CIA to help blackmail other UN nations into supporting the Iraq war, she senses betrayal. Fortunately in a role that allows her act rather than react, Knightley finds herself in the good company of Rhys Ifans, Matt Smith, Ralph Fiennes, Tamsin Grieg and Jeremy Northam, all of whom deliver the goods in a suitably sang-froid intrigue doused in David Hare-like dialogue.
Sadly robbed of its urgency by the intervening years, the events of Official Secrets feel a little dated in the daylight of current events. However, as a drama of government complicity and atrocity gone unchecked, Gavin Hood’s film is still a cool, warning light of excess. Chilling in its ultimate reality, this is a past that’s still alarmingly within touching distance.
Official Secrets | Directed by Gavin Hood (UK / US, 2019), with Kiera Knightly, Matt Smith, Ralph Fiennes. Starts Nov 21.
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