Film Corner: The Fifth Estate

[Content Note: Rape culture.]

Below, the trailer for Julian Assange: What a Hero! The Fifth Estate, which is a biopicish film about WikiLeaks mucketymuck and accused rapist Julian Assange, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange.


Video Description: Julian Cumberbatch and two other white dudes and a white lady watch grainy video very intently while making serious faces. Piano music. A reportery voice says in voiceover, "A video was leaked today depicting what appears to be a US military helicopter firing on unarmed reporters."

Cut to Laura Linney yelling at Stanley Tucci somewhere in D.C. "Twelve million people have seen that video! You still wanna tell me you think it's just a little website?!" They look at WikiLeaks on a computer screen. "They have an agenda?" asks Anthony Mackie. Laura Linney says, "Truth. Justice. The American Way." She is only being PARTLY SARDONIC, because obviously everyone knows deep down that Julian Assange and Co. are heroes.

I'd better take a moment to say, in case the past nine years of archives haven't already made it abundantly clear, that I am all in favor of government transparency and accountability. That said, I also happen to find many of the people men who engage in whistleblowing leaking classified information to be self-aggrandizing assholes. That doesn't mean they're doing something wrong! Necessarily! But I am pretty contemptuous of narratives that paint them exclusively as altruistic lovers of truth. Especially when they are probably fucking rapists.

So, let me state plainly that there are a lot of whistleblowers I deeply admire, about whom no one is clamoring to make sycophantic biopics with major stars, but Julian Assange is not among them. Hence the snark.

Anyway.

Blah blah lots of super pretentious quotes from Julian Cumberbatch about conspiracies and truth and secrets and morality, over images of Assange and other white men with computer screens reflecting off their faces, car chases, Julian Cumberbatch smiling shyly (HE SO HUMBLE!) while getting a standing ovation after a speech, blah blah yawn fart. "Courage is contagious!" says Julian Cumberbatch. The US government is after him. "We have to publish now!" Exciting thriller music now. Text onscreen says: "Some call him a visionary. Some call him a traitor." A woman tells Julian Cumberbatch, "If we had someone like you, the Berlin Wall would have come down years before." I know, right? He's practically Christ.

Speaking directly into the camera in what I can only imagine is part of an interview conceit framing the film, because PREDICTABLE MOVIE IS PREDICTABLE, Julian Christerbatch says: "If you want the truth, you should seek it out for yourself. That's what they're afraid of. You." Text onscreen reads: "You are the Fifth Estate."

Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes.

Okay, so, there is A LOT of story here, at least in the marketing for the film, about how Julian Christerbatch is a hero who is totes concerned with fairness and rightness and justice and THE TRUTH, and there is nothing, at least in the marketing, about how he has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault and/or sexual harassment and refuses to face those women in court in the interest of justice.

In fact, there is a brief scene smack in the middle of the trailer showing Julian Christerbatch in silhouette with a woman, smiling at each other while they unbutton their shirts.

Welp.