OFFICIAL SECRETS (2019) FILM REVIEW

***

15, 111 Mins

Terrific performances and timely subject matter can't shun televisuality.

An exceptional cast of Britain's best thespians headline this thrilling if a tad televisual thriller about the leak of a secret memo exposing an illegal US spy operation in the run-up to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.

Keira Knightley delivers one of her finest performances as GCHQ whistlebower Katharine Gun who leaked the memo only to find her professional and personal life thrown into disarray due to the ramifications of her actions.

Like the best physical portrayals, its one which requires Knightley to be "ordinary"; her English rose-like beauty buried beneath baggy eyes and toned figure stripped to the skeletal bone to create the impression of a woman with relentless commitment to Queen and country exposed to the world warts and all.

Matt Smith and Rhys Iffans cut shambolically greasy shapes as Observer journalists Martin Bright and Ed Vuillemy who translated the memo to print. Meanwhile Conleth Hill is on perfect pot-bellied form as grouchy Editor Roger Alton and Ralph Fiennes breathes bespectacled life into barrister Ben Emmerson.

The inherant "ordinariness" of its stars's outer exteriors adds to the film's authenticity when it comes to capturing British espionage as an "ugly" business 100 worlds away from the glitz and glamour of 007; allowing the attractive actors to blend into the background of the film's blackened boardrooms and offices. I was often reminded of Danish TV series 'Borgen' (2010-2013) in the film's broadcast news-like details such as having headlines crop up to explain the importance of a scene's setting.

While that series utilized the strengths of serial storytelling to make politics accessible to a mainstream audience, however, 'Official Secret's dreary GCHQ backdrop never quite feels suited to the silver screen and one wonders whether a long-form HBO drama might have been a better bet when it comes to telling this story.

This is a surprise coming from Director Gavin Hood whose swooping camera angles and whizzy-whirey editing made the drone warfare of 'Eye in the Sky' (2015) feel claustrophobically cinematic aswell as terrifically timely.

On that latter point, there's no questioning the prescience of 'Official Secrets's subject matter in this "post-truth" era. Ultimately, however, Television and Film are fundamentally different mediums - no matter how much recent examples of both have blurred the boundaries - and this film walks that ultra-thin line too on-the-nose for its own good.