So I recently watched the Dreamworks production "The Fifth Estate", which is loosely based on the books WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy by the Guardian and Inside WikiLeaks by Daniel Domscheit-Berg: I think I made my obsession interest with the website fairly clear back in October (if you haven't read the post, clear an hour of your time to do so); I think it's safe to say that I didn't go into this film flying blind. And I feel pretty confident about what I liked and didn't like about it.
So, without further ado, I give you my critique:
So, without further ado, I give you my critique:
The movie starts off on the right foot; it begins at the end, in the center of the chaos that is the publication of hundreds of thousands of classified documents, and it forces the audience to wonder "How did things ever get to this point?"
I can't think of a better way to begin such a movie, myself. It's sort of a no-brainer: Being such recent history, the publication isn't a spoiler, and there's no way to get the audience excited about the movie to come without a lot of visible excitement.
Once the movie flashes back to 2007, though . . .
To begin with, the script was weak. If you frequent WikiLeaks at all, you may be aware of a draft of the script that was leaked to the site and published there in full (along with plenty of commentary pointing out the film's inaccuracies). Bill Condon, the director, addressed this in an interview prior to release, saying that the script bore little resemblance to the final draft that was used for filming. Spoiler Alert: He was lying. The draft on WikiLeaks and the draft used in the movie are very, very similar. I mean, some things were deleted, yes—the movie does not feature a scene with Assange idly sucking on a lemon—but nothing of significance. If I'm perfectly honest, I have to say that Assange did moviegoers a favor leaking that script.
And, unfortunately, it's even worse in execution than in print. The storytelling is messy, disorienting, and yet dull all at once. It is genuinely hard to care about what's going on. About forty minutes into the movie I found myself wondering, "Is it halfway through?" and then before the ninety minute mark had to restrain myself from skipping ahead. The filmmakers took the story of WikiLeaks—WikiLeaks!!!—and made me not want to watch it. That's not just embarrassing, that's criminal.
I think part of the problem is that no one in charge knew what they wanted the movie to be. You watch it and wonder what it's really about. Obviously it's not a documentary, and it's not supposed to be a judgment on Assange or his organization—so what is it? Is it a thriller about whistleblowers versus big government? Is it a bromance-gone-bad between Assange and Domscheit-Berg? Is it a historical drama about political activism, freedom of speech, and/or the transparency movement?
No. It's none of these things. The movie is advertised as a thriller, but you can't really believe that—nor should you—given that the real action, up until the big finale, occurs in cyberspace. And the story, more or less, is about two idealistic but very naïve computer nerds who go about exposing corruption till they bite off more than they can chew and the whole thing blows up in their faces—but that's okay because they've also unwittingly opened the door for a new era of journalism, a "fifth estate".
Right from the beginning you have a problem, and that's in the portrayal of the characters. Assange and Domscheit-Berg (then Berg) are neither true to history nor believable on their own. You see, the movie paints them as idealists—especially Berg—with little grasp of the repercussions their leaks could have. It might work, and even be exciting, if they were in their early twenties. But they're not, they're in their late thirties. Grown men—the sort of men who ran WikiLeaks in real life—should understand the gravity of the situation. It's an insult to the work of both Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg to depict them as clueless romantics. The men who went up against Julius Baer, the church of Scientology and Kaupthing knew the weight of the risks involved, but went ahead anyway; that's part of the reason the real thing is more exciting than the movie. It's almost as though the director, or writer, or whomever responsible didn't appreciate the consideration or strategy that went into WikiLeaks. Plenty of geeks can set up a website; it takes cunning to defend it against international attacks.
The character problems are also a big part of what makes the movie so hard to follow thematically. Because the director, short of deciding what the movie should be, focuses almost exclusively on avoiding what it shouldn't: Judging Assange.
It's a noble goal; if you're going to create a movie based on someone not only influential but still living, you should make some effort to portray them objectively. What you should not do, however, is drive this idea into the ground till the character is inscrutable and inconsistent.
Certain things Assange does in the movie come straight from firsthand accounts, such as eating with his hands and then wiping them on his trousers, but other things are completely bogus. Within a day of meeting Berg face to face, for example, he intimates an incredibly depressing anecdote in casual conversation. The real Assange is known to share unnerving information about himself, often with the media, but it's almost always as a means of being funny or making himself sound more interesting, not to garner sympathy. But the writer had to explain Assange's background somehow, and I guess flashbacks were just too difficult to work into the story.
But if the story is so important, why does it feel like so many scenes were written in with no other purpose but to put Assange in a sympathetic light? And why do they have to be so inconsistent? I mean, one minute he's telling Berg to buy a crypto phone, like he knows there's danger, and then the next he's horribly shocked that two of his associates are killed, as though it comes as a genuine surprise that there are risks involved. And what was up with the whole dyeing-his-hair thing???
Is telling the real story of WikiLeaks so scary that it can't be done without leaving out anything that might spark a debate, or inventing things about the main character to keep him "balanced"? A word of advice, then, to the filmmakers: Next time you want to create a movie that won't upset anyone, DON'T BASE IT ON JULIAN ASSANGE.
I can't fathom what the writer, or the director, were thinking. I mean, do they have any storytelling talent? Can't they tell when anything feels wrong?? Did they just not care??? Or did Assange somehow convince them to make a terrible movie just so he could talk smack about something?
. . . Actually, that sort of makes sense, considering how bored he must be right now. (But I doubt he'd have the funds.)
Not all is terrible about the movie, though. The visual analogies of the old WikiLeaks submission platform are interesting, and Carter Burwell's score is excellent—especially the piece played during the end scene. And Benedict Cumberbatch is right to receive so much praise for playing Assange.
I still question the decision to cast him—his face is just so narrow—but if you can relax and watch the show without trying to reconcile Cumberbleach's profile to that of his character, the accuracy of the performance will sneak up on you. Cumberbatch is already established as a master of body language, but the fact is especially clear portraying Assange. And I'm not just referring to Assange's persistent blinking. (If he couldn't duplicate that, the casting director would have to be shot.) It's the walk, the poise, the shrug, the hand gestures, etc. With little to no help from the script (or his own physicality), Cumberbatch captures the essence of his subject.
The best scene in the movie, by far, is the last one—and no, not just because it is the last. The scene takes place in the Ecuadorian Embassy, where Assange reflects on his situation, and the "WikiLeaks movie" to a silent, off-screen interviewer. It allows movie-Assange to give real-Assange's views on the movie, which is an interesting (if creepy) irony; the music is perfect, both heartbreaking and haunting; and Cumberbatch has the floor for the entirety of the scene, giving a monologue on the real-life topics that make the story of WikiLeaks so interesting. So it's all the strengths and none of the weaknesses. The finale of the movie might have been botched, but at least the conclusion was well done. Meh.
I can't think of a better way to begin such a movie, myself. It's sort of a no-brainer: Being such recent history, the publication isn't a spoiler, and there's no way to get the audience excited about the movie to come without a lot of visible excitement.
Once the movie flashes back to 2007, though . . .
. . . it's all slush.
To begin with, the script was weak. If you frequent WikiLeaks at all, you may be aware of a draft of the script that was leaked to the site and published there in full (along with plenty of commentary pointing out the film's inaccuracies). Bill Condon, the director, addressed this in an interview prior to release, saying that the script bore little resemblance to the final draft that was used for filming. Spoiler Alert: He was lying. The draft on WikiLeaks and the draft used in the movie are very, very similar. I mean, some things were deleted, yes—the movie does not feature a scene with Assange idly sucking on a lemon—but nothing of significance. If I'm perfectly honest, I have to say that Assange did moviegoers a favor leaking that script.
And, unfortunately, it's even worse in execution than in print. The storytelling is messy, disorienting, and yet dull all at once. It is genuinely hard to care about what's going on. About forty minutes into the movie I found myself wondering, "Is it halfway through?" and then before the ninety minute mark had to restrain myself from skipping ahead. The filmmakers took the story of WikiLeaks—WikiLeaks!!!—and made me not want to watch it. That's not just embarrassing, that's criminal.
I think part of the problem is that no one in charge knew what they wanted the movie to be. You watch it and wonder what it's really about. Obviously it's not a documentary, and it's not supposed to be a judgment on Assange or his organization—so what is it? Is it a thriller about whistleblowers versus big government? Is it a bromance-gone-bad between Assange and Domscheit-Berg? Is it a historical drama about political activism, freedom of speech, and/or the transparency movement?
No. It's none of these things. The movie is advertised as a thriller, but you can't really believe that—nor should you—given that the real action, up until the big finale, occurs in cyberspace. And the story, more or less, is about two idealistic but very naïve computer nerds who go about exposing corruption till they bite off more than they can chew and the whole thing blows up in their faces—but that's okay because they've also unwittingly opened the door for a new era of journalism, a "fifth estate".
Right from the beginning you have a problem, and that's in the portrayal of the characters. Assange and Domscheit-Berg (then Berg) are neither true to history nor believable on their own. You see, the movie paints them as idealists—especially Berg—with little grasp of the repercussions their leaks could have. It might work, and even be exciting, if they were in their early twenties. But they're not, they're in their late thirties. Grown men—the sort of men who ran WikiLeaks in real life—should understand the gravity of the situation. It's an insult to the work of both Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg to depict them as clueless romantics. The men who went up against Julius Baer, the church of Scientology and Kaupthing knew the weight of the risks involved, but went ahead anyway; that's part of the reason the real thing is more exciting than the movie. It's almost as though the director, or writer, or whomever responsible didn't appreciate the consideration or strategy that went into WikiLeaks. Plenty of geeks can set up a website; it takes cunning to defend it against international attacks.
The character problems are also a big part of what makes the movie so hard to follow thematically. Because the director, short of deciding what the movie should be, focuses almost exclusively on avoiding what it shouldn't: Judging Assange.
It's a noble goal; if you're going to create a movie based on someone not only influential but still living, you should make some effort to portray them objectively. What you should not do, however, is drive this idea into the ground till the character is inscrutable and inconsistent.
Certain things Assange does in the movie come straight from firsthand accounts, such as eating with his hands and then wiping them on his trousers, but other things are completely bogus. Within a day of meeting Berg face to face, for example, he intimates an incredibly depressing anecdote in casual conversation. The real Assange is known to share unnerving information about himself, often with the media, but it's almost always as a means of being funny or making himself sound more interesting, not to garner sympathy. But the writer had to explain Assange's background somehow, and I guess flashbacks were just too difficult to work into the story.
But if the story is so important, why does it feel like so many scenes were written in with no other purpose but to put Assange in a sympathetic light? And why do they have to be so inconsistent? I mean, one minute he's telling Berg to buy a crypto phone, like he knows there's danger, and then the next he's horribly shocked that two of his associates are killed, as though it comes as a genuine surprise that there are risks involved. And what was up with the whole dyeing-his-hair thing???
Is telling the real story of WikiLeaks so scary that it can't be done without leaving out anything that might spark a debate, or inventing things about the main character to keep him "balanced"? A word of advice, then, to the filmmakers: Next time you want to create a movie that won't upset anyone, DON'T BASE IT ON JULIAN ASSANGE.
 |
| "I know the film intends to depict me and my work in a negative light. I believe it will distort events and subtract from public understanding."—Julian Assange |
. . . Actually, that sort of makes sense, considering how bored he must be right now. (But I doubt he'd have the funds.)
Not all is terrible about the movie, though. The visual analogies of the old WikiLeaks submission platform are interesting, and Carter Burwell's score is excellent—especially the piece played during the end scene. And Benedict Cumberbatch is right to receive so much praise for playing Assange.
I still question the decision to cast him—his face is just so narrow—but if you can relax and watch the show without trying to reconcile Cumberbleach's profile to that of his character, the accuracy of the performance will sneak up on you. Cumberbatch is already established as a master of body language, but the fact is especially clear portraying Assange. And I'm not just referring to Assange's persistent blinking. (If he couldn't duplicate that, the casting director would have to be shot.) It's the walk, the poise, the shrug, the hand gestures, etc. With little to no help from the script (or his own physicality), Cumberbatch captures the essence of his subject.
The best scene in the movie, by far, is the last one—and no, not just because it is the last. The scene takes place in the Ecuadorian Embassy, where Assange reflects on his situation, and the "WikiLeaks movie" to a silent, off-screen interviewer. It allows movie-Assange to give real-Assange's views on the movie, which is an interesting (if creepy) irony; the music is perfect, both heartbreaking and haunting; and Cumberbatch has the floor for the entirety of the scene, giving a monologue on the real-life topics that make the story of WikiLeaks so interesting. So it's all the strengths and none of the weaknesses. The finale of the movie might have been botched, but at least the conclusion was well done. Meh.
