Dateworthy?: Yes, it’s a thought-provoking conversation starter. Be warned, it does feature a fair amount of F words in some scenes and has a brief yet fairly graphic sex scene that does figure into the bigger plot, however.
It may seem like a cliché and an impossibility in modern times that one person can literally change the world, but Edward Snowden showed it can be done. The former CIA intelligence analyst shocked the world, and in particular the American government, in 2013 when he jetted out of the country with a massive trove of top-secret information about the National Security Agency (NSA) and its metadata collection programs that basically invaded the privacy of every American living on the grid.
Snowden was trying to flee to Ecuador, but famously got stranded in Russia when the U.S. government revoked his passport while he was amid a layover at a Russian airport. Three years later, he remains in limbo in Russia, a man without a country and a figure of international controversy and mystery.
The new movie “Snowden” reveals the whole story, or at least Snowden’s side of it, and arrives in theatres Friday as a movie that’s not only well-made and compelling but downright important. Its depiction of just how far even our government will go if watchdogs don’t stay alert is frightening. Yet its portrait of a man who stood up and shook the most powerful leaders on the planet to the core is an indelibly brave one.
“Snowden” opens with Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meeting documentary filmmaker Laura Pointras (Melissa Leo) and journalist Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto) of the British newspaper The Guardian in a crowded Hong Kong mall. They quickly hide out in Snowden’s hotel room, where he starts the process of extensive video interviews revealing all he knows to the world.
The goal is to tape him quickly and get a story written by Greenwald and fellow journalist Ewan McAskill (Tom Wilkinson) in time to beat the CIA from catching them all first. The reason why they know the clock is ticking is that the Guardian’s editors had to follow legal protocols and make sure that the articles would not result in massive blowback from U.S. officials.
Once they found that the publication of the article couldn’t be stopped, the clock began ticking because it was a certainty that the CIA would be racing to capture Snowden and his cohorts as a show of force to the world. As Snowden and his team effect a complicated escape from Hong Kong for him, the movie jumps back and forth across multiple phases of his career, showing the shocking layers of knowledge he gained at each stage that led to his decision to bring the NSA’s nefarious efforts down.
Director Oliver Stone, who co-wrote the screenplay with Kieran Fitzgerald, has a long history of making movies (“Platoon,” “JFK,” “Wall Street” and “W.”) that tackle controversial political subjects and people. While he’s a multiple Oscar-winner, he has often allowed his movies to slip into bombast to make their points – yet here, he manages to keep the tone moving and humanly relatable throughout.
Snowden’s relationship with his girlfriend Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley) is a particularly stirring aspect of the film. A liberal war Iraq war protester who had a vastly different worldview than diehard conservative Snowden, she slowly has an effect on waking him up to the idea that it was okay to question a president rather than blindly adhere to one. But the film draws great moments from the immense stress Snowden’s secretive life had on the couple.
Yet that very lesson gives the movie a fascinating kick, as the NSA programs started under George W. Bush’s administration only become worse under President Obama’s, despite his promises of vast reform and great change for the better. In fact, the movie is such a strong indictment of how badly Obama allowed the program to expand that it’s an amazing reminder of our First Amendment protections.
This fact, which makes the film seem to be conservative in nature, has no doubt impacted the general critical response it’s gotten from the nation’s critics. In the chatter after the critics’ screening I attended, some of them complained not about the film’s qualities but their annoyance that it presented the negative truth about the Obama administration so directly.
This is a masterfully made film, regardless of how you view its politics.
The fact that this film was made by Oliver Stone, a man who is considered one of the strongest left-wingers in Hollywood, is a testament to just how dire our government’s abuse of power was and how brave Snowden is. Joseph Gordon-Levitt does a terrific job immersing himself into the role so fully that his entire speech patterns are fully transformed, and he manages to bring a powerful emotional undercurrent to the film even in spite of having to keep his deepest thoughts secret much of the time.
Morally, the movie does feature about 50 F words scattered across its 2 hour 20 minute running time. Most of these are bunched into specific tense situations – arguments over the policies, or a big fight between Edward and his girlfriend, and in context, they’re not nearly as offensive as when F words are paraded through raunchy comedies.
The one other element to be aware of is a fairly graphic sex scene that lasts about 30 seconds between Edward and his girlfriend. While the scene could have been more implied, there is a very key aspect to it that is one of the film’s biggest and most important surprise revelations to the actual plot.
For viewers who can handle those aspects of the movie, it all adds up to a film that is a must for anyone who cares about the state of our nation (since this was a program that was abused by both parties). The movie’s message is clear: our nation will only remain great if we remain vigilant about those who control it.
