Knightley shines... in a performance that balances conviction and soul baring, and is all the more genuine for its lack of showiness.

| Feb 21, 2020

Official Secrets celebrates the courage of a government employee who attempted to prevent the invasion at considerable risk to herself and to those she loved.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 22, 2019

The script, based on a book by Marcia and Thomas Mitchell, keeps layering in complexity, refusing to go dumb. And Knightley's performance gets steelier as she struggles to overcome her fears

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 21, 2019

[Knightley's] smart not to play Gun as the noble martyr, but merely as an ordinary, frustrated citizen who makes a split-second decision.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 30, 2019

Gavin Hood's Official Secrets isn't a poor film so much as an unremarkable one, and if there is any suspense or stylistic innovation to be wrung from this important story then the director is keeping it under his hat.

| Oct 24, 2019

Whatever its flaws, Official Secrets reminds us just how seriously the state took its pursuit of Gun, who had nothing to gain and everything to lose by raising the alarm, revealing the teeth behind the smarmy smiles.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 20, 2019

[H]obbled by fidelity, spatchcocked by earnestness, this film never takes off.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 18, 2019

While it'll do nothing to restore trust in the august bodies that rule the land, it's a pacy, palm-clammying watch.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 18, 2019

There's something interestingly tough and forthright about this slow-burner from director and co-writer Gavin Hood.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 18, 2019

It's Knightley's intensely focused performance that sustains the film. She inhabits Gun with an almost ascetic bearing, especially when her drawn countenance is placed against the sepulchral gloom of the GCHQ environs.

| Oct 18, 2019

Hood knows how to crank the tension and a certain fury ticks under the story.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 16, 2019

[Katharine] Gun's principled stand against the scary forces of corruption is inspiring but it's the recent proroguing of parliament that bestows an urgent relevance on the rather dry script.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 16, 2019

There's a fascinating tension at the heart of this whistleblower drama about dubious intelligence operations on the eve of the 2003 Iraq war.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 15, 2019

Official Secrets is a timely, ambitious if broad take on a complex subject, but remains engaging and entertaining. anchored by Keira Knightley on great form.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 14, 2019

Official Secrets does its baseline job if you needed the story of Katharine Gun retold and vaguely dramatised, but it's dreary entertainment.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 10, 2019

I think this is one of Keira Knightley's best performances.

| Original Score: A | Oct 7, 2019

Do yourself two favors: see the picture, and if you're unfamiliar with the outcome of the case, avoid the Google before purchasing a ticket. It'll make for a much more nerve-wracking time at the movies.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 27, 2019

Keira Knightley is excellent in Official Secrets, but there's no sense of tension or thrill here, no propulsive thrust forward, in the surprisingly dull whistleblower drama.

| Sep 19, 2019

Like the whistleblower at its center, "Official Secrets" has backbone and conviction, something we could use more of today.

| Original Score: B | Sep 13, 2019

It's a good story, well told, though you have to forgive Hood for indulging in a little journalistic cliché.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 10, 2019