Sound of Freedom review: ‘QAnon blockbuster’ echoes into nothing
This must be the first time I’ve gone to a movie and wondered if I and the five other people in the cinema qualify for some kind of watchlist; whether me and the middle-aged couples with shopping massed at their feet are somewhat suspect merely by dint of ducking into the Melbourne Central mall to pay for a midday showing of Sound of Freedom, “QAnon’s first blockbuster”.
The film has been surrounded by controversy since it started its climb to the top of the US box office without major studio backing. Lead star Jim Caviezel has spouted a lot of the baseless theories and rallying catchphrases of the QAnon movement in recent years, and the film’s subject (wealthy international child sex trafficking rings) plays right into a lot of Q-adjacent thinking.
In the midst of this, right-wing media figures such as Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson have expressed their support for the film, and former US president Donald Trump hosted a screening at his golf club. Closer to home, the New South Wales Liberal Party’s Willoughby state electorate conference organised a screening of what it called a “resounding call to rally against injustice”.
