In the wrong hands, Official Secrets could so easily have descended into a glossy star vehicle. But director and co-writer Gavin Hood, who has form with Eye In The Sky, ensures that the focus remains on substance rather than style with the lead character’s motives, and the facts and repercussions of her actions, taking centre stage.

The lead character being Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley), a translator at the government’s intelligence and security headquarters (GCHQ) who, upon reading an email from America’s national intelligence agency (NSA), requesting British operatives to spy on members of the UN Security Council so that they can dig up dirt to swing a vote in favour of war against Iraq, decides to leak said email to an anti-war campaigner who in turn passes it onto Martin Bright (Matt Smith) from The Observer.

The result? A front page splash which reveals “US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war” followed by threats of deportation to her Kurdish Turk husband Yasar Gun (Adam Bakri) and a charge of breaching the Official Secrets Act.

As the pressure mounts, both personally and professionally, it would have been so much easier for Katharine to plead guilty and take the rap of a reduced prison sentence. But given that she sees her role as a means of gathering information so that the British government “can protect, not lie to” the British people; and given that Bush and Blair’s justification for war is, according to a retired source, “sketchy at best and manufactured at worst”; she decides to hold her nerve and seek the advice of human rights lawyer Ben Emmerson (Ralph Fiennes) and Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti (Indira Varma) so that she can argue her case in court.

Needless to say, Blair, Bush and their war-mongering colleagues including Colin Powell and Peter Goldsmith do not come out of it well. “Bloody liar,” yells Katharine as the PM defends his military strategy in an interview with David Frost. But this film is less about sticking the dagger into individuals and more about the David and Goliath pursuit of truth by whistle-blowers and journalists (in much the same way, but not as forensic or ferocious, as Spotlight) which has obvious parallels with today. Particularly when Katharine hollers, “Just because you’re the Prime Minister, it doesn’t mean you get to make up your own facts.”

Keira Knightley, along with fellow cast members who include Rhys Ifans as the maverick journalist Ed Vulliamy and Shaun Dooley as the deadpan internal affairs investigator John, deliver convincing and for the most part understated performances. Descriptions which equally apply to the cinematography of Florian Hoffmeister whose dingy and domestic interiors are as down to earth and matter of fact as the USP of Blair’s successor: “Not Flash, Just Gordon”.

The outcome is a given, but credit to Gavin Hood and his fellow writers Gregory and Sara Bernstein, together with composers Paul Hepker and Mark Kilian, for cranking up the tension without resorting to theatrics. In essence, doing a Hamlet and ensuring that “The play’s the thing” rather than the players and the production values.

The real-life consequences of which are recorded in black and white before the closing credits: up to a million Iraqi civilians and almost four thousand American and British soldiers killed – in a war based on “sketchy at best and manufactured at worst” intelligence.

Director: Gavin Hood
Writers: Gregory Bernstein (screenplay), Sara Bernstein (screenplay)
Stars: Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Ralph Fiennes
Peter Callaghan
Latest posts by Peter Callaghan (see all)