Snowden, as the opening title card explains, dramatizes true events in its subject's life that occurred between 2004 and 2013. The film begins in 2013, with Edward Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meeting journalist Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto) and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo) in Hong Kong. He tells them his story, which begins with his being discharged from military service following an injury. He joins the CIA, and soon learns of the U.S. government's various mass surveillance programs. He grows more and more uncomfortable with his position, and risks everything to let people know the truth.
This film is framed by a dramatization of the interviews that were done in the documentary Citizenfour. It is a little strange to hear all these stories secondhand, to have to view them through a layer of dramatization. The film is a good enough interpretation of Edward Snowden's story, the portrayal and the performance giving him a kind of heroic appeal that works well within the context of mainstream cinema. But it doesn't feel entirely true to who the man is or what he stands for. The film oversells the intrigue and fails to capture the simple reality of Snowden's outsider appeal.
The film finds its raison d'etre in trying to find the humanity of its subject. It builds a lot on his relationship with his girlfriend Lindsay (Shailene Woodley), the film intent on finding the heart of this tin man. It is a reasonable approach, but the film doesn’t go far enough to really justify its approach. Lindsay doesn’t feel like a real person in this movie. The writing makes her out to be kind of a manic pixie dream girl, a collection of attractive quirks that gives the film’s hero newfound purpose. The movie never really bothers to resolve tension between them. They might fight, but the film will just jump ahead in time when things have already cooled down.
So what’s really left is just the same story told in Citizenfour, with the disadvantage of things not being real. The film applies a layer of Hollywood gloss to the story, making Snowden out to be an unambiguous hero of epic proportions. It invests too much in making him out to be special, almost superhuman; when part of the appeal of the real Edward Snowden is that he just seems like a regular guy. He’s a tech guy that most people wouldn’t notice, suddenly thrust into prominence because of his conscience.
Oliver Stone has lost a step or two since his heyday, and it kind of shows in this film. The filmmaking feels a little dated, particularly in how it uses music. It overplays too many moments with its musical cues, the emotion of any given scene amplified by an overly insistent score. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is fine in the lead role, the actor doing a fine enough impression of the subject. But as good as he is, he just isn’t as compelling as the real thing. Shailene Woodley is wasted on a supporting role that doesn’t get a lot of definition. In other supporting roles, Rhys Ifans and Nicolas Cage ham it up to an unacceptable degree.
Snowden is good enough if you have somehow managed to avoid all the coverage of its subject. This Hollywood version of this story is palatable, with just enough gloss and simplification that it becomes easy to watch. It is a decent starting point for getting into this story, but it is by no means the only media one should consume if one is interested in this story. The film even points to a better explication of this story: Laura Poitras’ excellent documentary Citizenfour. That film allows viewers to do exactly what Snowden wants them to do: take in the information and decide for themselves. This film doesn’t offer the same kind of freedom.
My Rating:
