Entertainment One UK has released the first Official Secrets trailer. Gavin Hood’s new movie is based on the true story of GCHQ translator Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley) who chose to leak official secrets in order to prove that the government was lying about the necessity for the Iraq War.
I caught the film at Sundance earlier this year and found it a little underwhelming. I wrote: The biggest problem with Official Secrets is that, other than having no energy to the direction, the story lacks focus. Gun is at the center of the story, but then the plot will go off for large chunks to follow the journalists who investigated the email and then later following Katherine’s lawyers. The story always returns to her, but it departs from her for such long stretches that her importance feels diminished. What Katherine Gun did was courageous and noble, and then for some reason the movie will stop and be like, “But what about the reporters?” And their work was important, but Gun bears the moral and legal cost so she should be driving the action, or at least face an antagonistic force greater than Scotland Yard investigator who basically show up to say, “You’ll be charged at some point.”
To the credit of this trailer, it makes the film look fast-paced and compelling enough that it makes me want to see the movie even though I’ve already seen it and found it mediocre. Check out the Official Secrets trailer below. The film also stars Matt Smith, Matthew Goode, Rhys Ifans, and Ralph Fiennes.
Here’s the official synopsis for Official Secrets: In 2003, as politicians in Britain and the US angle to invade Iraq, GCHQ translator Katharine Gun leaks a classified e-mail that urges spying on members of the UN Security Council to force through the resolution to go to war. Charged with breaking the Official Secrets Act, and facing imprisonment, Katharine and her lawyers set out to defend her actions. With her life, liberty and marriage threatened, she must stand up for what she believes in…
