Official Secrets – Review

Official Secrets

Directed by: Gavin Hood

Runtime: 112 minutes

A question I usually find myself asking when watching a film based on a true story is: “Does this story need to be told?” I mostly do this because, these days, we’re a bit over-saturated with true story dramas, especially around awards season. Official Secrets caught my attention initially because of its cast and its mood. I also enjoyed the fact that I had absolutely no idea what it was about initially. I know very little about world events or modern history—for I live in my millennial vacuum where I have replaced the need for social interaction with Nintendo Switch games. So watching Official Secrets was a learned experience for me. But to reiterate my previous question, does this story need to be told?

Official Secrets is the story of Katharine Gun, who works at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). She receives an email stating that the US government want to spy on some United Nation diplomats who are about to vote on whether they should go to war on Iraq, with the hopes of potentially swinging their votes so that they approve of the war. Appalled by this, Katharine leaks this memo to The Observer newspaper. She watches as the country’s leaders try to cover up the truth, and spread misinformation to the masses. Katharine then starts to experience the ramifications of what she’s done in her personal life as well.

That’s the broad strokes, but there are many more complexities to the story. Despite this, the film does do a great job of explaining everything. Going in, I was initially worried that I may have gotten lost in the jargon of the script. And while there is some of that certainly, the film explains it all very succinctly.

The acting is fantastic. Keira Knightley is unsurprisingly excellent as Katharine Gun. I think what makes this film so gripping is that it gets you to care a lot about its protagonist. As the plot unravels, the implications of Katharine’s actions starts to seep into her family life. You start to see her struggle with the fact that her personal morals have severe legal consequences on the people around her. You care about her. You understand why she did what she did. And you’re on her side the entire time. The rest of the cast deserve a mention as their performances were also excellent. I was expecting Knightley to be the standout performance, but in fact everyone else performed at her level as well. It felt like she raised the bar high, and the others all met her up there—truly not a weak link among them.

So to come full circle, does this story need to be told? Yes, absolutely. I don’t think there’s a better time for this story to be told. We get bombarded with information from all angles, and most of the time we don’t question what we hear. Official Secrets stands as a reminder that we need to challenge what we’re being told if we don’t think it’s right. Not every source is credible, not everything we read is true. Even if it comes from official sources. We have a responsibility to question this information if we think there’s something wrong. I implore you to go see this film. Not only for the fact that it’s a great film in its own right—but also for the fact that it may make you think about what you consume, and how real it actually is.