Official Secrets

Director Gavin Hood has finally found his footing with his latest political drama Official Secrets, based on the book "The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War: Katharine Gun and the Secret Plot to Sanction the Iraq Invasion", after a series of misfires in the box office game with X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Enders Game — both critically and commercially annihilated on release. Hood is seemingly on the right track after his well-received war drama Eye in the Sky, released in 2015, and his latest feature is a well-crafted evolution building on that rock-solid foundation.

Gone is the visually outrageous, and in its place, a sharp screenplay has been implemented by writer/director Hood along side Gregory Bernstein and Sara Bernstein. A screenplay that does not beat around the bush with enigmatic political nature, it picks it’s side and sticks with it. In hindsight, it is the correct objective opinion, but nevertheless, the film showcases both sides of the argumentative political turmoil in the infant era of the millennium. The screenplay digs deep and has weighted aggression to it. The people are divided, and the film does not shy away from that very hatred and anguish.

Keira Knightley excels here as whistleblower Katharine Gun. A performance that showcases the skill and depth Knightley has to offer, the character’s emotional turmoil is superbly demonstrated in a portrayal that the actress takes to some incredibly dark and glib areas — always remaining engaging and intensely personal with the conviction of the writing at hand. Unlike much of Hood's films, an actress like Knightley is thankfully given quite a significant amount of screen time, and the afforded availability offers the actress great room to craft a captivating performance.

This visually restrained style of filmmaking from Hood — and a more personalised focus on character — showcase a tremendous element of the director's craft that has been hidden in most, if not all, of Hood's work since his directorial debut. Official Secrets is a tense and gripping piece of cinema and crafted in the exact manner it needed to have been. Hopefully, it is the beginning of a new era for Hood who showcases so much potential that desperately needs to be built upon and not be allowed to fade away in hollow blockbusters.

Official Secrets is released on October 18, 2019.