Member review

Official Secrets tells the true story of Katherine Gun (Keira Knightly), who leaked secret information about the United Nations blackmailing people into voting for the Iraq war. She leaked this information to real life reporter Martin Bright (Matt Smith) from The Observer, who was responsible for making this story public information. Throughout the film we see multiple perspectives on how the leak has affected people.

The Director Gavin Hood, did a good job at directing the actors, but not as well with the camera. It didn’t bother me while watching it, probably because it’s based on true events, I was more focused on the actors and how they portray these people.

Keira Knightly delivers an excellent performance, maybe one of her best performances. When the film’s pacing slowed down, Knightly managed to keep me interested throughout those segments. I’m very surprised she didn’t get any awards recognition for this.

While he is given much less screen time then Knightly, I really enjoyed Matt Smith’s performance as Martin Bright. Smith was able to bring an outside perspective as well a sense of empathy which was lacking from the characters in Gun’s storyline.

My one problem with the Smith section is that it feels like a side story that went on for too long. I get that it is important to show this side of the story, because this is how it became public information, but I would have preferred if this section was edited further throughout the film, with more cut backs to Knightly to keep this section more cohesive.

Ralph Fiennes also stars as Ben Emmerson who was Gun’s lawyer during this event. He gives a good performance, but doesn’t stand out nearly as much as Knightly and Smith. He enters the film halfway through so his arc feels a little rushed. He should have been introduced earlier on and perhaps his story would have worked better.

The film had a huge ensemble cast with Gun’s co-workers and multiple reporters from the Observer, because of this, the screenwriters were unable to convey everything about them in only one scene. So they decided to introduce these characters with a profile to the side, stating their name and political background. This technique was then used for the first act, but strangely this wasn’t used again, and the film had multiple opportunities to do this with each of Gun’s lawyers who are all real people.

In conclusion, “Official Secrets” manages to deliver an above average thriller even though it is guilty of some of the tropes you see in these types of films like “The Post” or “All The President’s Men”. In spite of those flaws I’d still recommend you’d give this a watch, it’s worth it.