She Said
Last time an American tyrant was taken down, “All the President's Men” couldn't save him. This time it's what “She Said” that provides the ammunition.
The two movies essentially follow the same script – intrepid investigative journalists, in this case with The New York Times rather than the Washington Post, put themselves and their interview subjects in harm's way and psychological peril to tell the story of corruption at the highest level.
Only the genders, and the decades, have changed in these journalistic thrillers.
We're not talking about a president this time, although our previous one has been dogged by reports of predatory sexual behavior and rape throughout his career. Between threats, bullying and paying to make it go away, he's been able to live a remarkable, frightening life in arrogant disdain for truth. But although one act of his sexual abuse followed by his election to the presidency opens the movie, Donald Trump is not the subject of “She Said.”
This film's predator in chief is in a different line of work altogether. Harvey Weinstein, before New York Times reporters Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) got wind of the story, was one of the most powerful producers in the movie industry. Running Miramax Films with his brother Bob, Harvey's name appeared prominently at this time of year, orchestrating ruthless campaigns for top Oscar contenders, many of which went on to win the best picture prize.
Although his horny proclivities were an open secret in the industry for years, he wasn't the initial focus of the assignment given to the two young reporters by editor Rebecca Corbett (Patricia Clarkson). The project targeted sexual discrimination in the workplace, but before long all roads started leading to Harvey.
Kantor and Twohey are both mothers of young daughters. Their career ambitions take a constant toll on their roles as mothers, as Twohey also struggles with postpartum depression. All of this adds emotional tension to the thriller, almost as much as the deeply scarred psyches of Weinstein's victims the investigators seek to get “on the record.”
The journalists who ultimately won a Pulitzer Prize for their exposé collaborated with Rebecca Lenkiewicz on “She Said's” script. Director Maria Schrader nimbly balances the deadline-and-adrenaline-fueled energy of the newsroom (filmed in the real New York Times offices) with the complex emotions of all the women involved.
Settings become characters in the story: Brilliant staffers do journalism in the architecturally thrilling NYT environs presided over by no-nonsense editor Dean Paquet (Andre Braugher). Cab rides through Manhattan offer kaleidoscopic colors in soft focus passing outside the car windows. The city's sidewalks crowded with strangers are where the reporters get many of their tips via cell phone.
Weinstein's victims were young women when he abused them; now they are middle-aged, still struggling with shame along with the broken hopes and careers he left them with. Ashley Judd, a key figure in breaking the fortified strong-arm wall Miramax had built around Weinstein, plays herself in the film.
Considering that it takes place in the age of cell phones and laptops (which would have been the stuff of science fiction when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate story), reporters Kantor and Twohey have to resort to the same shoe leather and knocking on doors to get to their very reluctant witnesses. Most of the women signed nondisclosure agreements, adding to their very real fears of harm, intimidation and retaliation for any contact with journalists.
Kazan's Kantor is the softer half of the twosome, wearing her empathy on her sleeve. Mulligan's Golden Globe-nominated Twohey, in contrast, is tough and razor sharp, following up on any evasive answer with an even harder question.
As the film makes clear, “getting the story” takes its own toll, especially on the victims who have already lost so much. “All the President's Men” found a certain nobility in American newspaper journalism. Fifty years later, things look a little blurrier.
An interview can itself be an act of violation. There's huge trust involved. A reporter's promise that it's off the record is only as good as her own word. Confidences willingly shared by an interview subject often take on entirely different meanings in the black and white of ink on newsprint, or pixels on a screen.
The crusading investigators of “She Said” are far more complex characters than the ones played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in “All the President's Men” – but no less courageous and resourceful. The women they spoke to had to find their own strength and courage to bring the story to light.
But even with the movie's postscript, alluding to the Me Too movement spawned by the case and to all the years Harvey Weinstein still has to serve on his conviction, you're left with a sense of outrage rather than resolution. Even seeing the real Harvey Weinstein on recent newscasts, a decrepit old man hunched over his walker, produces feelings of reptilian revulsion rather than justice served.
No matter what “She Said,” a world in which sexual abusers who disdain the truth still hold so much power reminds us how much more remains to be done.
Comments
Post a Comment