TIFF 2016 Review | ‘Snowden’ Will Leave You Cold

Edward Snowden stole government secrets and revealed them to the world, sending himself into exile in the process. He exposed an ongoing effort by the American government to spy on its own citizens, an unthinkable breach of the national trust and a terrifying concept in this modern, interconnected world.

And craziest of all, if the movie Snowden is to be believed, it turns out that the whole fiasco was just a wee bit boring.

Snowden is the latest political screed by Oliver Stone, who has built an entire career on questioning the American government in high profile, excellent films like JFK, Nixon and W. It stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Edward Snowden, a CIA analyst who discovers that the government has been collecting data from Americans illegally. Then he sits on this information for about a decade, feeling kinda bad, and then he decides to do something about it. Waiting for him to make the decision we all know he’s going to make – because when he did, in real life, it was kind of a big deal and made a few headlines – is an undeniable slog.

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Also: TIFF 2016 Interview | Joseph Gordon-Levitt on ‘Snowden’ and the Future of the Internet

All the impressive casts in the world can’t save a two-and-half-hour story with only two meaningful plot points in it. Snowden finds out the government is doing bad things and then he tells people. We are supposed to be riveted by his internal struggle: Snowden begins the film under the distinct impression that if the government does something, it must be for the greater good, but he winds up believing quite the opposite. And yet this isn’t Hamlet, and his inner turmoil doesn’t manifest in very interesting ways. He whines about doing the right thing, he threatens to leave his job – one time he even does, only to come back again anyway after a few lines of voice-over – and then eventually he gets sick of preaching to his co-workers and decides to preach to the whole world instead.

Edward Snowden’s journey, at least in this film, is a tedious walkthrough of desk jobs, declarations of his brilliance, and pat interludes with his girlfriend Lindsay Mills, played by Shailene Woodley, in a performance hindered by horribly undercooked writing. Mills is introduced as a hippy who – gasp! – dares Snowden to go outside for a change, and to consider that the government might not be perfect! After he learns that the government can spy on citizens through their laptop cameras, it’s having sex with Lindsay that makes him realize it could be an unforgivable violation! She’s a plot point and a stand-in whose biggest dramatic moment is telling Edward Snowden she’ll do whatever he needs her to do. She’s a character who is only afforded the courtesy of personal dreams that involve socialization and pole dancing. The real person may be interesting, but you wouldn’t know it by watching the film. If there is a greater waste of a great actress’s talent in recent memory, I can’t think of it.

Open Road Films

Oliver Stone seems to believe in this material. His film is full of serious conversations about national security, ominous music and informative montages. But dramatizing the life of Edward Snowden in a preachy and conventional narrative does the message a disservice. It transforms what could be an intelligent conversation into a tiresome lecture. Even the legitimacy of the film’s paranoia is routinely undone by trite dramatizations that make the whole situation feel cheesy.

There is a difference between a story that needs to be a told and a story that’s actually told well, and if you need an example to help you tell the difference, look no further. Do not confuse real-life importance for quality filmmaking. I recommend giving Snowden the cold shoulder.

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Top Photo: Open Road Films

William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved, Rapid Reviews and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.