The ink is still fresh on The Fifth Estate, although perhaps that is too outdated a metaphor. The code is yet to be debugged might be more appropriate. History has yet to really decide what it will make of Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Cyber freedom fighters, the internet generation’s Woodward and Burnstein? Or reckless and disconnected kids failing to realise that writing on screen can have very real consequences? “Editing reflects bias,” we’re reminded early in the film, perhaps a concession that that the movie can’t get the necessary distance to offer a definitive (or even especially nuanced) take on Assange and his revolution.
The Fifth Estate comes down quite hard against Assange, essentially reducing Benedict Cumberbatch’s white-haired technological genius to something like a Bond villain. Director Bill Condon struggles to make typing code look sexy with laboured metaphors. And yet, despite that, there’s a willingness here to engage with something big and bold and important, however clumsily the script grapples with the implications of Wikileaks.
The result is something far more compelling that the dire Diana. Diana was a film so close to its subject that it couldn’t muster any enthusiasm or offer anything approaching a challenging opinion. The Fifth Estate is too close to its subject matter, and it clumsily stumbles into obvious bias and slant, but it’s still an intriguing attempt to parse a new media that it seems Hollywood doesn’t really understand.
He’s Assange one, that one…
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Bill Condon, contemporary, film, Julian Assange, Movies, non-review review, review, the fifth estate, thriller politics, Wikileaks | 5 Comments »
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