I think She Said is on some level aware of its’ own bad optics. It really has to be. This is a movie about the New York Times investigation into Harvey Weinstein made by the very system that enabled his abuse for so long. Worse, it’s being positioned as an Oscar contender, which is already in poor taste before you factor in the specific domineering presence Weinstein had in that institution, that his company’s biggest goal (and which it largely succeeded at) was winning Academy Awards. The problems with sexual harassment and assault in Hollywood have not gone away, or even improved all that much in spite of the efforts of the #MeToo movement. It’s an insane amount of hubris and that premature patting itself on the back which Hollywood is known for that produced this film. So it faces an uphill battle to earn its’ dignity or any degree of sincerity.
It puts in more of an effort than I anticipated though. The movie can’t ever get away from the exploitative nature of its’ very existence, every so often it’ll subtly remind you of its’ Hollywood attributes or even grossly feel like a movie Weinstein himself might have produced twenty years ago. But it does in style and effect, assume the gravity of its’ subject matter and makes few allusions to self-aggrandizement. Further, the script by Rebecca Lenkiewicz is quite competent, and the direction by Maria Schrader legitimately interesting and conscious. I was surprised by some of the dynamic choices made.
Of course there is a stench of cynicism that comes from the casting of Carey Mulligan as Megan Twohey, which seems purely motivated by Promising Young Woman apparently marking Mulligan as Hollywood’s great new feminist icon. She’s too obvious the candidate for a role like this, regardless of how capable she is of playing it. Modestly more inspired is Zoe Kazan as Jodi Kantor, who has rarely been given mainstream Hollywood opportunities like this. She is particularly exceptional.
Whether or not it authentically aligns with the facts of the investigation, the movie presents Twohey and Kantor as latter day Woodward and Bernstein –in fact Schrader openly evokes All the President’s Men several times, from scene structure down to the framing of individual shots (we of course get a long one of the two women deep at work in the office into the late hours of the night). The movie actually starts with Twohey’s story on the assault allegations against Donald Trump during his presidential run, the backlash it received, and ultimately the little repercussions that came out of it –an illustration of the apparent fruitlessness of sexual assault reporting. It’s Kantor who later brings Twohey onto her case into Weinstein after being tipped off by Rose McGowan, and the two subsequently work together to track down several ex-Miramax employees who have corroborating stories of assault and harassment in the hopes they will publicly go on record –an immensely daunting prospect.
Structurally, the movie is a perfect docudrama of how the investigation panned out. It’s a very clinical movie in this regard, its’ plotting and pacing adding little that those who followed the case or read the initial exposé wouldn’t already know. Still it tries its’ best to relay the weight of the subject matter and give the personalities involved some character –there are sparse flashbacks, including one that opens the film, involving several women during the time they worked at Miramax in some capacity, and the jarring disillusionment that befell them. Weinstein himself never appears, though he is very much treated as an omnipresent spectre –a choice I have to imagine was motivated by the far better movie The Assistant a few years back. The performances by Jennifer Ehle, Samantha Morton are strong enough that you feel intimately the lingering effect of Weinstein’s violations even decades later. And the way Schrader uses his voice is chilling, whether it’s in the irate impression heard on a few conference calls with the New York Times staff or an uncomfortable minutes-long recording (that sounds to be genuine) of him pressuring a female staffer over haunting footage through the hotel where the exchange took place.
The movie is actually capable of some great moodiness, thanks in no small part to Schrader’s direction, the cinematography by Natasha Brair and the music by Nicholas Britell. An uneasy atmosphere is quite adequately conveyed when, for example, Kantor meets discreetly with ex-Weinstein accountant Irwin Reiter (Zach Grenier) in a restaurant at night framed against a wide window where one could imagine them being watched by a Weinstein agent –appropriately amplifying Reiter’s sense of paranoia. Even as you know nothing’s going to happen there’s a degree of suspense to the interviews, and especially those that concern members of Weinstein’s direct team, like a tight-lipped lawyer played by Peter Friedman. A good degree of this comes from the cast though, who all put on their best professional journalist demeanour, like Patricia Clarkson and especially Andre Braugher. However the drama is emphasized in some ludicrous ways too, like in the big moment of emotional catharsis when a few women add their names publicly to the story (including Ashley Judd, who appears as herself rather awkwardly in this movie that directly brings up her trauma), and in a scene at the end where the entire editorial staff crowds over a computer to read the story one last time before sending it to print -the cursor hovering suspensefully over the ‘Publish’ icon. Those kind of moments feel very much in the vein of manufactured journalism movie nonsense, and reinforce that sense of an exploited narrative Schrader otherwise would succeed at suppressing.
But Hollywood does its’ Hollywood thing. It’s curious the movie doesn’t touch on the fact that Weinstein was at a career low-point with his production company when all of this came out, or how his abuse was an open secret for years within the industry. Through McGowan over the phone and a brief comment from Morton’s character there is the suggestion of wider, systemic abuse going on in Hollywood, but of course Hollywood doesn’t want to focus much on that side of the story in producing this film -simply dropping an end text acknowledgement of the role the investigation played in the general #MeToo movement. This saving face precision whilst trying to represent the story accurately and with a motion towards sensitivity is the films’ rockiest hurdle in terms of its’ resonance. And though a solid effort is made, it still comes off shallow.
We didn’t need She Said. The Weinstein abuse movie was already made three years ago by Kitty Green: The Assistant has none of the big studio awards-vying baggage of this movie, and approaches its’ topic more viscerally, more honestly -and without ever veering into exploitation or amendment. I don’t envy the creatives on She Said who had to make do with this material, and I genuinely applaud some of their work. But the movie doesn’t feel right, for as impressive as some of its’ execution is or as tonally sensitive as it may opine. It is still relating the stories of courageous women through the format of their abuser. Leave Weinstein to rot in jail.
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