She Said - Review

 

In the long history of movie making, there’s been plenty of journalism movies. There have been fictional tales certainly, but the ones that remembered the fondest are the true stories. “Spotlight,” “All the President’s Men,” and now “She Said” is here to tell another true story, one very close to the home of the Hollywood people behind the production.

Starring Carey Mulligan (“Promising Young Woman,” “An Education”) and Zoe Kazan (“Ruby Sparks,” “The Plot Against America”) as New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, respectively, the film follows their investigations into the sexual assault perpetrated by Harvey Weinstein and the cover up attempts from himself, his lawyers, and the board of Miramax. It also stars Patricia Clarkson (“Sharp Objects,” “The Station Agent”) as New York Times editor Rebecca Corbett, Andre Braugher (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “Homicide: Life on the Street”) as New York Times editor Dean Baquet, and Ashley Judd (“Dolphin Tale,” “Missing (2012)”) playing herself in a cathartic minor role.

Nowadays, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t know who Weinstein is or what he did given the past few years of media fervor and court cases. Smartly, director Maria Schrader (“Unorthodox,” “I’m Your Man”) and writer Rebecca Lenkiewicz (“Small Axe,” “Disobedience”) don’t try to recount who he is or what his accomplishments are. In a rather brilliant move, the film virtually ignores who he is for most of the film. It’s not important, and not nearly as much as the women whose lives he’s impacted, and so that’s where the focus lies.

Kazan is wonderful, a delightful firecracker of a reporter who manages to effectively showcase the skill and intelligence on display while also balancing the deep emotion at the center of this issue. However, Gyllenhaal absolutely delivers a towering performance. She’s just excellent, delivering a performance that’s easily one of the finest, if not the best, of her career. Clarkson and Braugher are also excellent, providing a kind of elder wisdom to Twohey and Kantor as they run up against roadblocks and frustrations with the case. It’s so cathartic to see Braugher’s Baquet so unimpressed with Weinstein’s tactics and to so quickly shut him down on every phone call.

But arguably the film’s most cathartic element, and one that speaks to the true genius at the core of it, is Ashely Judd’s role. Yes, Judd’s role in the real-life investigation was necessary for the film to be made but having her play herself was not. This results in a role for an actress whose career had been essentially blocked after speaking out against Weinstein, and to have it be in a film directly about his horrible acts is, to reiterate, cathartic.

There’s an overall plainness to the film’s visuals and musical score, although this shouldn’t be taken as a negative by any means. The editing and overall pacing keeps everything tight and tense despite the flat look to it all. It might seem cheesy to say, but given how much of the film is just about typing stories and reporting, it might contain some of the tensest moments of the year, and is without a doubt the tensest clicking of a button on a webpage of this year.

Rather, the plainer visual style is a choice that clearly sets the focus of the film on the women who’ve suffered because of Weinstein’s actions. At multiple times throughout the film, Schrader and Lenkiewicz make you subtly think “If he hadn’t done this, what could these women be doing?” Seeing how their lives have continued since and how some have stalled is an emotional tour de force. When one simply responds to the knock at her front door from the Times by saying “I’ve been waiting for this for twenty-five years”, it sets everything into perspective.

It might not have the visual flair of works like “Spotlight” or “All the President’s Men” but “She Said” still has a fantastic script and phenomenal actors leading a story that feels cathartic to say the least. It might not be so good as to overcome the tropes of the genre, but this is a film that deserves to be remembered alongside the great journalism tales, and if nothing else is an excellent telling of an important story. 4.5/5