Brave young woman takes on government
OFFICIAL SECRETS
OFFICIAL Secrets tells a little known story about a British whistleblower prior to the second Iraq War.
She’s Katharine Gun (Keira Knightly) whom we first meet in court being prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act for leaking information from her position as translator of Mandarin at the intelligence-gathering Government Communications Head Quarters.
The material was incendiary. It was a memo from Frank Kosa, the head of the ‘regional targets’ division at NSA, the American intelligence counterpart, requesting Britain to spy on the six non-permanent member countries of the United Nations Security Council in order to sway their vote endorsing the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Katharine copied the memo and through a friend of a friend it ended up on the desk of The Observer journalist Martin Bright (Matt Smith) who worked with his US counterpart Ed Vulliamy
(Rhys Ifans) and colleague Peter Beaumont (Matthew Goode) to try to authenticate the document.
When Katharine confesses to the leak she’s arrested and threatened with prosecution, much to the despair of her husband, Turkish-born Kurd Yasar (Adam Bakri) who risks deportation.
Turning to the Human Rights organisation Liberty for help in her defence, she’s advised by Ben Emmerson (Ralph Fiennes).
The director Gavin Hood has made an unshowy effort bringing authenticity to this film which is enhanced by the performances in it.
Keira Knightly is exceptional as Katharine, and so are Matt Smith and Ralph Fiennes.
There is a terrible sadness as you watch the devastation beginning in Iraq knowing that the repercussions are still going on all these years later.
The figures at the end of the film about the number of deaths and wounded are a condemnation of what was in effect an illegal war.
This is a cautionary tale about underhandedness and duplicity in government, but in essence it’s the story of a remarkably brave young woman.