Why Official Secrets Is a Must-Watch Spy Movie on Amazon Prime

Maintaining the official documents of a country remains the top priority for a person working under the government or for the government. What happens if top-secret documents are exposed by whistleblowers? And these lead to complicated situations involving law enforcement, putting Katharine, a British intelligence translator, under investigation, thereby jeopardising her career. Underlying this theme of governance, intelligent agency, and security agency, the director Gavin Hood adapted the original story by adding a cinematic experience to the plot.

Memo

The film begins with Katharine Gun, played by Keira Knightley, struggling with the ethical dilemma she faces after reading a confidential memo about an illegal spying operation. Her job includes translating and analysing intelligence documents. She works as a British translator at GCHQ, Cheltenham, and is fluent in Mandarin. The message contained information about the US and UK working together to spy on UN members in an effort to pressure them into supporting the 2003 Iraq war.

The Memo described the plan about secretly listening to the phone calls and reading the emails of six UN representatives–Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea, and Pakistan. As these countries played an important role in voting, their votes decided whether the United Nations would officially support the Iraq invasion or not.  Now, she tries to convey this message secretly to the public through various sources–The Journalist–Martin Bright, and eventually lands in an unavoidable situation. 

Observer

The plot gains momentum aftermath of the leaked memo. The journalist publishes the memo in the Observer paper; thereupon, the credibility of the memo gets scrutinised by the error caused by the American-to-British spelling mistake. Initially, the memo contained American favor words, but one of the staff, while spellchecking, changed it into British favour words, leaving the team furious. 

Investigation

Gun’s action leads her to the investigation, where she confesses to leaking the classified memo, believing it was appropriate to do so and stop an illegal war. Finally, as the story proceeds, Gun is entangled between the media and the government, igniting a national conversation on the ethics and legality of whistleblowing,  government secrecy, and moral responsibility.

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Adaptation 

The director has managed to present the original story to the audience without affecting the main characters and plot. In the film, all the actors’ performances leave the viewers amazed. Especially Keira Knightley ( Katherine Gun), Matt Smith (Martin), and Rhys Ifans (Ed Vulliamy). 

With the theme of integrity, morality, consciousness, and patriotism, this film makes a significant impact on viewers. It provides a whistleblower’s perspective in resolving the issue, maintaining peace among nations, and risking her life for justice. Having been released on different dates internationally, this film gained appreciation for its gripping plot, costumes, direction, writing, and acting. It has all the informative elements that people can rely on for deeper insights. People can watch this film on Amazon. 

Written By: Tejaswini Prasad