Bill Condon (director of such diverse films as, for example, “Gods and Monsters” and “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn”) directed “The Fifth Estate,” a film about the WikiLeaks website. More precisely, about the site: the script for the film is based on the book by Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a former employee of the resource. In other words, Condon's film presents a purely subjective point of view. In the United States, the film was released in mid-October and has already failed at the box office. The failure could be attributed to the frivolity of the American public - they say, yesterday they were still reading newspaper articles about Assange, but today no one gives a damn. But Condon's work has its own problems.

At the very beginning of The Fifth Estate, Domscheit-Berg (played by Daniel Brühl) personally meets Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch), who came to Germany for a hacker rally. The virtual acquaintance between them began earlier - both were interested in disseminating information on the Internet and corresponded on this matter. Assange came to Berlin to present his own WikiLeaks project, but he failed to interest other conference visitors except Domscheit-Berg.

At first, meeting Assange inspired Domscheit-Berg so much that in order to work on WikiLeaks, he was even ready to give up his personal life (his girlfriend is played by Alicia Vikander in the film). However, by 2010, their ideas about how the site should function were completely different. Roughly speaking, Assange believed that information should appear on WikiLeaks without any editing at all - this is exactly what he saw as the essence of the resource. Domscheit-Berg feared that such an approach could harm informants. The conflict reached a critical point around the time WikiLeaks reached its peak of popularity.

It is clear that “The Fifth Estate,” like almost any other picture “based on real events,” does not provide an opportunity to get an idea of the real events themselves. The point is not only that, in fact, it is the story of one of the interested participants in the events. The script for The Fifth Estate is quite fragmented; the main storyline is interrupted by episodes involving, in particular, an Egyptian informant and American officials. If a viewer is not familiar with the history of WikiLeaks, the film will not give them a clear idea of what exactly the site was and why there was such a fuss about it. If the viewer has read something about the resource, he is unlikely to learn anything new from Condon’s tape.

Still from the film “The Fifth Estate” 1 /5

In addition, numerous complaints about the film voiced by the real Assange and his colleagues on the site are, in general, justified. The film is really one-sided - moreover, it is not about WikiLeaks and its creator at all. The main character here, of course, is Domscheit-Berg. “The Fifth Estate” is a story about his mental anguish, about professional growth, about how Daniel quarrels and makes peace with a girl, and also finds an idol - but he turns out to be a monster. Assange in the film is the real antagonist, an insensitive egocentric who, among other things, dyes his hair (which, apparently, is supposed to reflect his moral bankruptcy).

The paradox is that Brühl, who actually plays the main role, clearly does not live up to his opponent Cumberbatch. The character, which the viewers, according to the creators of The Fifth Estate, should treat with antipathy, as a result looks many times brighter than the main character. And this despite the fact that in reality Berg is obviously nicer than Assange, and the film does not tell anything significant about the founder of WikiLeaks. It’s just that Cumberbatch’s facial expressions and intonations are much more interesting to watch than the vague plot of “The Fifth Estate,” as well as all the other characters in the film combined.

At the very end of the film (let's not remember the word "spoiler" when discussing a work dedicated to WikiLeaks), the creators of The Fifth Estate suddenly awaken a sense of humor. In the final scene, Assange (not the real one, but still played by Cumberbatch) is shown in the Ecuadorian embassy in London - where, as is known, the creator of WikiLeaks is hiding from prosecution. Assange-Cumberbatch is talking with some abstract journalist and, among other things, discussing Condon's film. He, in particular, says that “The Fifth Estate,” of course, can in no way be considered a true story, if only for the reason that it is based on the book of his former deceitful employee. It's good that the filmmakers admit to its unreliability. It would have been even better if they had informed the audience at the very beginning that their fictional story was noticeably more boring than the account of real events as presented by Wikipedia.

Perhaps the film should be Wikified