It’s time to blow the whistle on one of the best kept secrets of the year.
OFFICIAL SECRETS is a spy story par excellence. It doesn’t come with the sexy cars and the exotic locations of a Bond film, although it does have current M Ralph Fiennes in an exemplar role of a defending lawyer.
Katherine Gun might have a spy name, but she’s not really a secret agent, although the Official Secrets Act of 1989 would paint her as a traitor. A GCHQ translator specialising in Mandarin, Gun received an e-mail in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. In this memo, the US government’s National Security Agency urged UK cooperation in an intelligence “surge” to gather information on UN Security Council members, with a view to securing a UN resolution to send troops to Iraq. Horrified, Gun leaked the memo, which ultimately came into the possession of The Observer journalist Martin Bright.
A thorough investigation into the authenticity of the e-mail followed, led by Bright and his colleagues, before the story went to print on March 2, 2003, headlined: “US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq War.” With her department under intense scrutiny, Gun confessed the leak and lost her job. Moreover, she was arrested and – eventually – charged with a breach of the Official Secrets Act.
As he has publicly stated, the real challenge for director Gavin Hood was ‘How can we tell this story in a way that is accurate and true and still have it be dramatic without deviating from the truth in order to create a ‘Hollywood’ movie?”
The challenge has been met and what we get is a movie with balls, brio and what should be a box office bonanza. Like the current thriller, THE REPORT, OFFICIAL SECRETS boasts an intelligent script served by an intelligent cast.
Keira Knightley is a revelation as Katherine Gun whose conscience triggers what is ostensibly career suicide and possibly incarceration. Her portrayal encapsulates the discomfort many us feel about the darker aspects of our democracy. Her actions were not about treachery but transparency.
As her admirable advocate, human rights lawyer, Ben Emmerson, Ralph Fiennes gives a master class in unflappability, faced with the flapping albatross of the amendments to the British Official Secrets Act 1989 as engineered by Margaret Thatcher, a Catch 22 by way of Orwell and Kafka, making fair trial and verdict virtually impossible.
In wonderful contrast, Rhys Iffans is almost Hunter S. combustible as Observer journalist, Ed Vulliamy.
OFFICIAL SECRETS is the third film in an unofficial trilogy by director Gavin Hood, following Rendition and Eye in the Sky, about life in the age of global terrorism and the lawful rules of engagement and it more than takes its rightful place alongside them as documents of due diligence.
If nothing else, it will make you think hard about using spell check and prescriptive text.
