![]() ![]() At Kendall Square, Coolidge Corner, Boston Common. Starring Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Ralph Fiennes, Matt Smith, Adam Bakri. Written by Hood, Sara Bernstein, and Gregory Bernstein, based on a book by Marcia Mitchell and Thomas Mitchell. “Official Secrets” scratches the surface of a deep and dark universe of things we’re not supposed to know but should.ĭirected by Gavin Hood. In the end, the message is both illuminating and disturbing: Sometimes the only way to save yourself from being punished for revealing a secret is to threaten to reveal all of them. It’s an occasionally plodding but rarely dull movie, and one whose stakes outweigh its impact as drama. But as Fiennes’s crafty Emmerson comes to the fore, the kind of natural chess player who thinks four moves ahead of everyone else, “Official Secrets” becomes a partnership between a woman intent on doing the right thing and her crafty moral and legal guide to the abyss. 'Official Secrets' is the new film starring Keira Knightley as real-life whistleblower Katharine Gun. The husband remains an underwritten character, understandably freaked out, and much of the later scenes in “Official Secrets” are dominated by Ralph Fiennes as Ben Emmerson, the human rights lawyer who took on Gun’s case.īecause Gun is initially so reticent about taking center stage - Knightley gives the heroine an appealing, unshowy modesty - the scrum of reporters around the story (played by a solid cast, including Matthew Goode, Matt Smith, Conleth Hill, and a scenery-chewing Rhys Ifans) tends to shout her out. Gun has a strong reason to want to stay under the radar: She’s married to Yasar (Adam Bakri), a Turkish man whose stay in Britain would be - and is, in the film’s nerve-wracking and somewhat neat climax - threatened by his wife’s revelations. Hood and his co-writers, adapting Marcia and Thomas Mitchell’s book “The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War: Katharine Gun and the Secret Plot to Sanction the Iraq Invasion,” depict the flurry of people rising to Katharine’s defense and offense while slowly charting the awakening of one woman’s commitment to her moral beliefs. ![]() The surprise is that the glare of that spotlight only stiffens Gun’s spine. ![]() (b) Any person obtaining information in contravention of this Act. (i) Person in possession of official information (a) Any person in possession or control of secret official information. The drama of “Official Secrets,” then, is that of an ordinary person like you or me (who looks like Keira Knightley, but never mind) thrust unwillingly into the spotlight and risking possible imprisonment for revealing an ugly truth. Section 5: Secret Information and Official Secrets Section 5 is broadly worded and its provisions may be examined under the following headings. Worth noting: The 1989 act was revised from the original 1911 law to strip out language allowing for leaks in the name of “public interest.” In common parlance, Gun is screwed. A month later, it’s on the front page of England’s The Guardian and Gun ultimately finds herself charged with violating England’s Official Secrets 1989 act i.e., treason. The way “Official Secrets” tells it with engrossing, steady style, Gun is appalled, prints out a copy of the memo and takes it home, giving it to a friend with journalism contacts and expecting nothing to come of the matter. ![]()
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