Reality (HBO)

0:01 Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore. I'm a producer, writer of film and television and now a podcast producer. And despite having every streaming service, I never know what to watch. So anytime I watch something good, I talk about it on the show. This way, you'll never have the same problem I do. I watched this tonight. There's always something good to watch. Let's get started. Today on the show, we were talking about Reality, which is a new HBO original movie.

0:44 I refuse to call it Max. This is based they may go to great pains to let you know. It's based on a transcript of an audio recording of the interrogation and arrest of a woman who was ultimately charged with like violation. The espionage Actors like That stars Sidney Sweeney from Euphoria. The headline is this is an eighty minute experiment and as that it works pretty well. And I think in large part that's due to the execution. Really good acting, really well directed, and you know, sometimes life conspires to create a scenario that is a natural thing for drama. So this is a good one to sort of you know, if you got eighty minutes, you want to try something a little bit unique to kind of take a flyer on. If this had been even two hours, it absolutely would not have worked. But they were smart about the running time, and I think that's a big part of why it works. And then it's an incredible showcase for Cydny Sweeney, who I never watched Euphoria. I have no knowledge of what's going on with her and all that. Obviously, I know it has really launched her as a star and all that, but this is almost like an eighty minute audition for her to know that she could do anything, and you could put her in an Ariaster movie, like she could have started Midsomar after you watch this, and actually, in a weird way, this feels kind of like an Ariaster movie at times. There's a weird creepy feeling to it that sort of escalates as it goes along. But basically the setup is, you know,

2:16 you see Sydney Sweeney. She comes home and there's a couple of guys outside her house and they show their badges and they're with the FBI, and then it's just all kind of creeping dread. This is like an eighty minute panic attack in slow motion. They're sort of making small talk with her and what's great about it and why it works, and it must have been true with just the transcript, and it would it makes sense. They don't want to like alarm her. So it's very much the frog and the boiling pot of water. Right they're there, they're like, hey, you know, like they're so nice. The fact that they're so nice it almost makes it creepier. And if you don't have if you haven't like looked it up beforehand, which I suggest not doing acts, just going in blind. You know, you know that she's in trouble, but you don't know exactly the specifics, and so they're kind of making small talk and then you know, it just gradually gets ratcheted up. So at a certain point they're like, hey, do you have any guns in the house, And you know, you almost expect her to be like no, no, and she's like yep, and they're like, well, what do you got? And I was like, well, I got a pink R fifteen, I got a I think she's a fifteen gage and then a glock nine and she sorted. So it's like oh okay, and then it just keeps ratcheting and ratcheting and ratcheting. It's like a docu drama, Like it's very much something that like David Simon could have made this, but the way that it's directed has that ariaster creepiness.

3:44 And I have an example of this. There's a part of this movie that I think I either I laughed and exclaimed and it was really like a horror movie moment they established that there's a toy truck across the street with a little Confederate flag on it and it's empty, it's sitting there across street. But then they cut back to it and there's like a creepy cat sitting in the trunk looking at her, and it was like a hard movie jump scares ou. So it does. It has this weird tone to it that you would not expect that I think works really well. And again it's it's it would be mundane if you didn't know that. The subtext of all the small talk with the FBI agents is that they are about to nail her to the wall.

4:26 I mean, it's going to end badly. So that's the tension and subtext. As they're making small talk about like yoga and CrossFit, and you're like, you know, they're searching her house. There's a little moment where they leave her door open and she like runs over to close it because she just want her cat to escape. Was very relatable to me. I have two cats and we constantly do that. Um and but they but it's like a little moment of tension where they like, you know, they think she's she's doing something else and the FBI guys are there and all that, um, they do it the pet part of this. They do a really good job of humanizing her because you know, she's got to take her dog out, put her dog in the in a little sort of cage in the back or on the side of the house, and then she's worried about the cat.

5:08 They put a leash on the cat. She's very concerned about her pets, and that really makes you feel for her and also think about just like the logical things that would happen, Like if the FBI shows up at my house today and they're like, we're shutting down watch this tonight, you know they there would be like practical things that would be an issue, right, It'd be like, you know, like who's gonna pick up my kids from daycare and stuff like that, and so you know, seeing her worry about that stuff again like really humanizes her as a character. So you get invested in her story and you feel bad for her as they keep asking her questions and her responses keep getting more and more bad, you know. So first they're like, hey, you know, you wouldn't have taken out any sensitive documents and she's like, oh, well there was one time, but it was misunderstanding. You're like, oh, okay, And then they keep asking, keep asking, keep asking, and eventually she denies something and they're just like, we know you did, and she just has to sort of give up the ghosts. And there's a real transition where it's like it seems like she's gonna maybe just play innocent, and like forty five minutes into it, it kind of turns and we just start going down the rabbit hole into her psyche and understanding her and her motivations. And it's a very kind of claustrophobic movie. It's interesting. There's a little part in it where she mentions that her dog was like abused and doesn't like men, And after she says that,

6:41 you become very aware of the fact that it's like all male FBI agents sort of surrounding her, and eventually there's a female FBI agent who does like a pat down on her at the end. But yeah, it was fascinating. I thought that it was really an incredible showcase for acting, because I'm sure in real life this was tense, but not like so beautifully performed. The guys who played the two FBI agents who interrogate her the whole time are excellent. There's this one guy who thinks glasses and he's wearing like a tucked in button down and he totally seems like he's so polite. But at the same time, if you were to tell it, like if this was a fictional story and it ended with the reveal that this guy's like a serial killer, I would I would have bought it. I would have been like, makes sense at that tracks for me. So they just do a great job of creating this atmosphere of dread, and it's incredible they're able to sustain it.

7:35 Again, it's you know, they were smart about the running time, but it does. There's only a few actors that can hold up under this kind of thing. You know. You think back to Ryan Reynolds, to the movie where he's buried in a Coffin buried Colin Farrell phone booth. You know this play is like that. It's just very moment to moment and you're really wrapped up in the tension of it and it has to be short, which it is, And it was just really interesting and they do a great job of Also, you know, when there's something that's redacted, they actually the people blink out of existence. They do a bunch of little touches to just keep reminding you, like, this is real. It's all real. Here's a shot of the transcript where they said this, it's like watching a documentary acted out by actors, but not in like the cheesy way of like a docu drama. Like it's just beautifully acted. So is it a movie that I will revisit a bunch of times? Definitely not. Is it a cool movie to kind of take flyer on and have a different kind of experience?

8:35 I think so. I thought it was really interesting and I'm glad it exists. I think it's a worthy film and worth checking out. And that is on HBO, which, by the way, I think part of the reason I end up watching that is because I'm sad that there's no more succession in Barry. So if you know what else to watch on HBO, I'm probably not going to watch The Idol. Let's be honest. That's first of all, obviously it's gotten a lot of bad buzz, but also a tough watch for the two year old. What should we watch next? On HBO? It almost feels like the rebranding to Max. It feels like this potentially sad watershed moment where now when you go on HBO, it's like, oh, did you like this movie for example Reality, Well then you might also like like Chip and Joanna Gaines fix up a kitchen, So you know they're They're a really interesting moment as a brand, and I'm very curious where they're going to go from here. But this movie was interesting and good and I think you shoul check it out. That is the podcast for today. As always, thank you for listening. Until next time, Bye,