Spilling the beans

Official Secrets ... Whistleblowing at its finest ... The GCHQ operative who got a memo from the NSA into the hands of The Observer ... The right to know about the invasion of Iraq and its illegality ... Coalition of the Willing and the missing weapons of mass destruction ... Miss Lumière enjoys a high-minded leak in the public interest 

Keira Knightley: leaking by snail-mail

"You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow."

Official Secrets may be set in the febrile months surrounding the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the "willing coalition" of the US, Britain and Australia, but it is a film both of our times, and for our times.

In Australia, The Right to Know campaign is in full swing, bravely positioning our (very mixed) media as an antidote to government lies, damn lies and (official) secrets.

Good luck with that. 

Happily there was more than good luck and a gutsy press involved in the true story upon which this film is based.

The film opens in the dimly-it bowels of Britain's GCHQ (Government Communications Head Quarters) where 28-year-old Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley) is listening in and translating all manner of communications, in the hope of gleaning morsels of terrorist intelligence.

She comes across a classified memo from the NSA (the USA's global eavesdropping apparatus) asking Britain to forward any damaging information with which to blackmail several UN Security Council members whose vote the US needs in order to legitimise the bombing of Iraq.

Gun is that rare thing, a person of idealism, coupled with integrity. 

Before she even realises it, she has copied the missive and passed it on to a former intelligence operative who is busily campaigning against the proposed war from her muddy Yorkshire bolthole.

The memo finds its way to Malcolm Bright of The Observer, a paper that was at the time squarely backing then Prime Minister Tony Blair in his inglorious and illegal bid to rid Iraq of its "weapons of mass destruction".

While these included one of the West's favourite hairy, Muslim bogeymen, Saddam Hussein, there was (and still is) no evidence there ever were any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Official Secrets covers a lot of ground in an extremely tight frame, but while much of the action takes place in offices and courtrooms, it is never dull.

Tautly written by director Gavin Hood, Gregory Bernstein and Sara Bernstein, steadily directed and underscored by some thoughtful performances, this is an espionage thriller for the mind rather than the body, with only one approximation of a catch-me-if-you-can chase on a train (no leaps, explosions or stabbings, just stares). 

Knightley has abandoned her posh pout and in its place evinces a fierce intelligence and steely moral compass. 

The Observer's tenacious reporter Martin Bright is nicely underplayed by Matt Smith, who was last seen strangling a few vowels as a tortured Prince Phillip in The Crown.

Rhys Ifans as Ed Vulliamy, the greasy-haired, chain-smoking, rag-tag, ratbag-conspiracy-theorist journo based in Washington is repellently fabulous, if a little over-egged.

To cut a short story short - the film covers a period of roughly 12 months - the press does its dirty work and publishes. 

It remains undamned until The Drudge Report casts doubt on the memo's veracity due to its use of British spelling, not American. 

And therein lies a monumental stuff-up, courtesy of spellcheck.

By now Katharine, who has unwisely (it turns out for him) married a Kurdish asylum seeker (Yasar Gun, sensitively played by Adam Bakri) has confessed all to an investigator from internal affairs.

Facing certain prosecution and a lengthy term of imprisonment for breaching the Official Secrets Act, she engages British-based human rights organisation Liberty, in particular charismatic barrister Ben Emmerson (Ralph Fiennes in typically sound form). 

The legislation was tightened-up by Maggie Thatcher after civil servant Clive Ponting leaked embarrassing documents about the sinking of the General Belgrano during the Falklands War. 

When Emmerson asks Gun why she leaked the memo to the press, she responds:

"I work for the British people. I do not gather intelligence so the government can lie to the British people."

The plot takes in everything from the attempted deportation of Gun's husband by the powers that be, to the inelegant backflip perpetrated by then Attorney General Peter Goldsmith; one day a non-UN sanctioned invasion of Iraq is illegal, the next day it's not. 

And therein lies the rub of this inspiring, unashamedly political film.

We all know how the invasion of Iraq ended - with hundreds of thousands dead and injured - but it would be churlish to reveal just how Katharine Gun's story ends.

A hint: All's not well that ends well.