‘She Said’ puts spotlight on #MeToo and power of the press
Unfair or not, journalism dramas will inevitably be compared to “All the President’s Men” and “Spotlight” – two films that are tops in the genre and straightup classic movies. What the latest entry, “She Said,” has is timeliness and an entire movement behind it.
Directed by German filmmaker Maria Schrader (“I’m Your Man”), the investigative thriller (★★★☆; rated R; in theaters) chronicles the 2017 work of New York Times reporters Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) exposing Oscar-winning film mogul Harvey Weinstein’s history of sexual harassment in Hollywood and decades of silencing the survivors of his abuse. Their reporting (and subsequent book) was a flashpoint for the #MeToo era and is the basis for a well-acted film that emphasizes the fight for justice and the women portrayed telling their own stories.
Twohey is returning from maternity leave – having already collaborated on a story about former President Donald Trump’s sexual indiscretions with another writer – when she partners with Jodi, who has heard from various sources about Weinstein’s infamous behavior. For years, he took advantage of employees at his Miramax studio and others, essentially driving many women out of the movie industry. The reporters seek victims willing to go on the record about what Weinstein did.
The more they dig, the more the story is slowed down by nondisclosure agreements, a lack of cooperative sources and Weinstein’s power. And while the women explain to Kantor what Weinstein had done to them, using their names in print proves to be a key obstacle as deadlines loom and other media outlets circle the Times’ scoop.
There are no sexual assaults depicted and Weinstein doesn’t play an active role in the plot – one bit uses his voice, but in the fleeting moments he’s seen on screen, he is usually shot from behind.
Instead, Schrader wisely has centered the movie on those he hurt: Irish woman Laura Madden (Jennifer Ehle) decides to talk with Kantor while recovering from breast cancer, and former coworkers Zelda Perkins (Samantha Morton) and Rowena Chiu (Angela Yeoh) recall an emotionally devastating incident at the Venice Film Festival.
Alongside solid performances from Mulligan and Kazan, Patricia Clarkson and Andre Braugher are standouts, as Rebecca Corbett, the editor honchoing the reporters’ story, and Dean Baquet, an editor with ties to Weinstein who tries to get him to comment on the allegations, respectively.
Ashley Judd, the most famous name to go on the record about Weinstein, appears as herself, giving the movie an extra level of authenticity, even if its realness yanks you out from the narrative. (It's as if the real Deep Throat, Mark Felt, had suddenly shown up in “All the President’s Men” alongside Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford.)
The timing of “She Said” is impeccable: While 1976’s “President’s Men” and 2015’s “Spotlight” both put a bow of sorts on their subjects, Weinstein’s in the midst of his second criminal trial and is serving a 23-year sentence from the first. And it’s definitely a 21st-century depiction of reportage, with a lot of emails, cellphone calls and people staring at computer screens, although the climactic posting of a story online – even with Nicholas Britell’s impressive cello-fueled score – doesn’t quite have the same visceral drive as the incessant clacking of a 1970s typewriter.
But a riveting cinematic quest for journalistic truth – especially one such as “She Said,” which tackles an issue that means so much to so many – should always be embraced, no matter the era.