Mass Surveillance Part 2: Snowden (2016)

Film Review for Snowden (2016)
Directed by: Oliver Stone
Written by: Oliver Stone, Kieran Fitzgerald
Based on the book by: Anatoly Kucherena, Luke Harding
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Zachary Quinto, Melissa Leo, Rhys Ifans, and others

Review

You know the story of Edward Snowden, and Oliver Stone's film, much like his previous political films, sets to tell the human story of someone at the center of conspiracy. In this case, Edward Snowden a young man who injures himself in the armed service grows to serve his country in other ways. He is a computer science genius, shown to us in the typical "smartest guy in the room" type of incredulous test-study thing, before becoming a major worker in the CIA. It's during his time that he comes into contact with the NSAs surveillance network and his paranoia grows until he decides to whistleblow.

Considering that Edward Snowden's whistleblowing and what he divulged happened in the real world we are mostly familiar with this story. Citizenfour, the documentary whose real filming is dramatized in this film, was released about a year after Snowden's leak, the reputation of which had garnered a serious reputation as a blow against America. Declared an act of treason, the most important weight to drag to this film is the idea that Snowden somehow wronged us.

The film itself is surprisingly "meh."

Let's be clear, the character of Edward Snowden is not interesting, not in real life, not in the film. He was a worker, he got scared of his work, and he smuggled and whistleblew. That's literally the story, to the point that when he first came out many media outlets and the government did their best to try and redact his claims, to say he was just a disgruntled office worker who was mad about a relocation. There's an untouched arc that could've worked, where Snowden transitions from being a soldier to being a treasounous whistleblower, but for some reason the film refuses to ever tap into this. The Snowden from the very first conversation with his love interest is the exact same person at the end of the film.

Shailene Woodley has piss-all to do in this film besides look and act like Shailene Woodley. Has anyone even interviewed Snowden's wife/girlfriend person? You can't tell in this film, as she literally falls out of the sky as cool girl to have sex with, even when she's mad there's still some sexy things you can do with and for her. I've never seen so much screentime so grossly misused as with the romantic partnership between these two.

Let me be clear: I do not find the fear and paranoia of Mass Surveillance in and of itself interesting. It has to be made interesting for me. What I'm not interested in is Joseph-Gordon Levitt staring at his webcam. That's not interesting, especially when the only shot in the film dedicated to making that scary is a single shot of a woman who only goes to her undies. Invasive? Yes! Frightening? Paranoid? Thrilling? No. The opening shot of Carrie physically represents a far more uncomfortable reality of the relationship with nude vulnerability and viewership.

At least Orwell understood that rummaging through self-reported facts can create an entirely fictional criminal. That was sort of scary. But Snowden fails to think beyond some strange moral line. It seems to insist, "The government shouldn't be able to do this," and that in and of itself is only scary to a particular type of jingoistic gun toting paranoid that I'm not.

Snowden for some reason fails to comprehend what subject its even talking about. Nearly everything in the film, down to the basic paranoia that we established must be there in this genre, is missing. Instead we get a very boring slow portrait of a very boring man. And it did not have to be this way.

I think of Fruitvale Station, certainly a much more emotional powerhouse film, but a biographical film about a man unjustifiably shot at a train station while handcuffed. It's important to realize that the action of being killed is not what is focused on in that film. Instead, it takes a tour of what a young black man's life might look like, where he might have gone wrong, where he might have gone right. Then they kill him. And that's it. That's the point.

There is nothing interesting in the continued discussion this film has about Edward Snowden. Yes, what he did was great. No, nothing anyone has done before will be as important for the transperancy of the country. But there's a character there, a story, and a biography, not just of one man but of everybody, and when it's painted with this bland a brush for the characters, it serves absolutely no justice to the real people in America who may begin to feel threatened by this type of thing.

Art is an argument, a political stance, and the one in Snowden is so laughably weak that the concept of being "scared" only exists in the next project Stone decides to direct.

-----

Did you like this post? If so, consider signing up for the e-mail list so you never miss out on the latest film, tv, music, or video game post from Expository Conundrum! (Hint: It's in the upper right-hand corner of the page!!)

Also, consider donating to the blog! Your eyes are enough, but generosity and support can go a long way to making us both feel a lot better. Support your local artist (by local I mean Internet local.)

And finally, you can hang around the Facebook page or Twitter to keep up on Social Media. This doubles as the easiest way to harass me, but you wouldn’t do that would you?

-----
I didn't like Snowden, and when I don't like something, I'm not going to recommend it to you either. Instead, if you like conspiracies and/or Oliver Stone, make sure you've seen his career making masterpiece, JFK. It's longer than Snowden, but definitely better.