Oliver Stone’s latest iconoclastic biopic, Snowden, is a stunning exploration of personal liberties, journalistic integrity, and demonization of the whistleblower. Stone minces no words and makes his position clear: for revealing the extent to which the US government was spying on its own citizenry at great personal risk, Edward Snowden is a hero. Hence, Stone is primarily occupied with humanizing Snowden, and his casting of Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a step in the right direction. The film also exploits a parallel narrative structure to simultaneously tell the story of his life and the few days when he provided classified information to journalists in a Hong Kong hotel room. The result is a film which brilliantly characterizes Edward Snowden, his changing worldview, and the choices that made him infamous.
Long-Form Film Criticism and Fiction Writing by Derek Jacobs