Originally published in The Forest Scout:
You’ve been able to see all that Snowden has to offer for some time now, specifically for the two years since the release of Laura Poitras’ excellent documentary Citizenfour covering Edward Snowden, the former communications guru who leaked information from the National Security Agency concerning its massive top-secret surveillance networks. With only a couple of cameras and her journalist partner, Glenn Greenwald, Poitras communicated in person with Snowden as he actively hid from government agents in a secluded hotel room. If that sounds crazy, it’s probably because it was. You can think what you like about the man, about thirty years old at the time; Citizenfour made you agree that he was at least brave.
Snowden, essentially the studio remake with Joseph Gordon-Levitt starring as the titular character, comes carefully later, ironic considering the cries for self-expression it vies for. However radical Oliver Stone’s first film since 2008’s W. intends to come across as, the whistleblower’s actions now entail more of a readable thesis than a raw breaking story. Your suitability for Snowden depends on which one you want.
This continues Gordon-Levitt’s trend of starring in films derived from documentaries that were earlier and better, along with 2015’s The Walk. The modern masterpiece Man on Wire from 2008 could simply not be replicated, and it was a bit puzzling as to why a talented filmmaker such as Robert Zemeckis could even think that an unnecessary (and tacky) 3D campaign would do the trick. Snowden itself escapes with some contemporary wounds here and there as well. The score is every cliche of “hacking music” wound into a default software loop, and it is horrible. The relatively good news (most likely due to Gordon-Levitt’s own intelligent central performance) is that not much else in Snowden is. I don’t know if it’s that the movie can fill its 200 minutes more efficiently with an intriguing plot (the last ten to twenty are a different story, as I’ll talk about), or if the conflict, adjusted for hyperbole, is at least somewhat more credible, but if it helps to put it into perspective, I was expecting it to be worse. Not being horrible is a long way away from being good, but when you have Snowden standing up against Citizenfour, it’s only fair to say that the former is marginally less ridiculous than last week’s Sully.
Remember, this is Oliver Stone: Snowden retains its own level of ridiculousness. The first military training montage (the real Edward tried to join special forces) is a rather lazy way of displaying Snowden as the physical standout (“Let’s go, maggot!”). Once the script (co-written by Stone with Kieran Fitzgerald) is more comfortable building off of our relationship with the subject that needed no introduction, it picks up. Gordon-Levitt was dorky in The Walk, but here, he’s every bit as convincing as his character, right down to, most importantly, Snowden’s oddly subtle but significant voice tone. It’s what makes us care about his progress for the most part. Our man starts out a patriot; he eventually blossoms (the film argues to use that word) into a lone voice of reason within a contradictory organization. The discoveries he makes to come to that conclusion are purposeful and placed in an enjoyable sequence of rising action. His technological talent is defined, but it’s independent of his growing conscience, and he wonders if the acknowledgement of the former will waste the latter for himself and for the people who need it.
Who needs it, anyway? CIA official and Snowden’s mentor, played by a lurking Rhys Ifans, represents the watchful eye that will soon (as we can already assume) be revealed as the slimy adversary to a healthy society rather than its representative. As he consumes Snowden’s life, he seems like he should be a better fit opposite from James Bond. The disparity between this division is most engaging when Ifans and Gordon-Levitt are placed in the same frame as intellectual equals. Our antagonist, then, is more present. We can consider that some people actually think this way (not anyone who’s watching this, but you know).
Snowden does not recognize pure information; it can only get there through narrative. That said, in order to distinguish itself, it’s designed to surround the interesting stuff with a less interesting tale of Snowden’s love interest, played by Shailene Woodley. Gordon-Levitt is good in this one. I can’t say the same for Woodley. I don’t know if you can worm the actual words “liberal” or “conservative” into playful romantic banter, but she certainly can’t do it. She showed promise in The Descendants, but whether or not it’s the fact that she’s now the face of The Fault in Our Stars and Divergent, she seems to be more suited for stardom on a middle school debate team rather than a legitimate movie.
As much as it trips over that segment of plot, if the film has a weakness, it’s that it’s one of ideology; if you know your thoughts on Edward Snowden, you’ll too easily know your thoughts on the movie (you might as well slap on a “pro-” before the title). For the record, I found myself in my respective crowd; a remark (self-aware text-wise) by an NSA employee looking through personal files of American citizens delivered to the effect of, “I’ve never seen this little dirt on a Pakistani before,” brought some eye-rolling chuckles from the audience, and it sounded like it was for the right reason (hopefully). But I must admit, even with my bias there, I can tell it’s only so long before Snowden devolves into preaching to the choir. Obama’s election is celebrated like Christmas Day, but the note that he approved of extending these surveillance systems feels like an asterisk. Later, Snowden drops its clear-headed analysis of the protagonist’s journey and jumps straight ahead to his fulfillment.
All the way to the ending, which is hysterical. Snowden’s unrestrained attempt to Steve-Jobs-ify its subject during a web chat with a live audience is over the top and overwhelmingly gussied up. The actual Edward Snowden is filmed; the movie hands him the inspiring string section, but he’s utilized as a robot. The introductory credits actually use the breath to mention that this film is a “dramatization” of the events from 2004 to 2013. You’re telling me.
If I may, I’ll boil Snowden down to its defining moment, an early scene into the film: the two investigators behind Citizenfour, Poitras one of them (an underused Melissa Leo), begin to set up their cameras in a version of the room that the documentary was confined to. Eager to prod for questions but hesitating for decency’s sake, Leo’s character asks Gordon-Levitt’s, sitting in the bed across from the two, to state his name into the camera.
After pausing with a conflicted, drawn-out grimace, the man regains his composure and, by the power of the “clip-from-the-commercial” effect, drops the word bomb, “My name… is Edward Snowden.”
Fabrication aside, the shot just seems outright false. Gordon-Levitt tries (oh, does he try), and in a more moderated setting, yes, he seems to handle his surroundings. But the movie is not orating a biography — it’s selling Snowden. It may be filmed in a mediocre yet interesting fashion, but while it’s speaking from the heart, it’s usually from the cautious and profit-tailored one.
