Pressing on for victory

THE POST

Steven Spielberg delivers another first-class parcel of entertainment with this real-life political thriller. A prelude to the 1972 Watergate scandal, it sees a newspaper uncover damning evidence that the US government knew from a very early stage the Vietnam War could not be won.

Known as the Pentagon Papers, President Richard Nixon demands the documents remain classified information and goes to war with the press.

Tom Hanks stars as Ben Bradlee, defiant editor of The Washington Post. He makes a great double act with Meryl Streep, who stars as Kay Graham, his inexperienced socialite publisher. Together they risk their careers, prison, and the newspaper to defend their constitutional rights.

And it’s Streep who owns the film, delicately essaying a woman slowly recognising the iron lady within herself.

Having won Oscars for lesser performances, such as her portrait of Margaret Thatcher, it’s astonishing the threetimes Academy Awards winner has missed out on the big gongs so far this season. With Spielberg’s 31st full theatrical feature being such a marvellously assured affair, it’s all too easy to take the maestro’s elegant filmmaking for granted.

Elevating a straightforward script and setting about his business with diligence and well-honed economy, the world’s greatest living director calls on his years of expertise and craftsmanship to create a timely call to arms against unaccountable governance.

And under the cover of the macho posturing between the White House and the press, Spielberg and his team smuggle in a quietly rousing and inspirational account of female empowerment and self-awareness.

A nomination for the Producers Guild of America for best film tells us this is still in the running for the biggest Academy Award, and on Oscar night there’s no reason why this thoroughbred can’t be first past the post.

Cert 12A Running time

A diminished Matt Damon runs in ever-decreasing circles in this ponderous sci-fi satire.

The Bourne Identity star gives a pleasantly guileless performance as occupational therapist, Paul.

To solve financial worries, he signs up to be shrunk to five inches tall and live in an experimental community. However, the reality of his gilded existence is not exactly as it says in the brochure.

It’s consistent in tone, well designed and acted, but over long, patronising and only intermittently entertaining.

And as in his previous two films, 2011’s The Descendants and 2013’s Nebraska, writer and director Alexander Payne offers plenty of disdain for the working class, portraying them as fat, lazy, stupid and drunk.

Nor is the film’s premise as original as it thinks, being considerably less exciting than the 1957 classic The Incredible Shrinking Man, and a lot less fun than 1989’s huge hit Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Out on Wednesday.