She Said, the new journalism procedural from director Maria Schrader, takes the Spotlight approach and applies it to the bombshell New York Times story about Harvey Weinstein’s crimes. Like Spotlight, Schrader and screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz opt to follow the challenges and setbacks reporters must face, instead of making the film too exploitative or lurid. We don’t need to see flashbacks of Weinstein, alone in his hotel room, because what we imagine and read about is already much worse than anything Schrader could film, to say nothing of how the details of the story have already been exhumed in exhausting detail. Instead, She Said involves us in reporters and journalists who struggle to develop a rapport with frightened women, a reminder of how the systemic stranglehold men in power had before #MeToo improved things, albeit not as much as it would have us believe.
The story starts in 2016, a period where reporter Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) investigates accusations against Donald Trump. For anyone who saw the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election as a period of mourning, this is a tough prologue because we see how Megan deals with harassment, threats, and targeted attacks from right wing media (James Austin Johnson, who portrays Trump on Saturday Night Live, lends his voice to a phone call with her). These scenes also suggest a pervasive culture that tolerates harassment, and now that media has uncovered a scandal involving Bill O’Reilly, editors Rebecca Corbett (Patricia Clarkson) and Dean Baquet (Andre Braugher) want to pursue powerful men in other industries. Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) has heard stories about Weinstein, and although the world of entertainment is “soft news” for investigative reporters, she gets a greenlight because Weinstein’s victims are famous, which could attract attention. She and Twohey join forces, uncovering a culture of silence and abuse that shocks them.
Although they will not get the most attention, the best scenes involve Twohey and Kantor pursuing one lead after another. She Said can be fascinating and heartbreaking when the journalists meet people who are still traumatized by Weinstein, such as a tense moment where one meets Zelda Perkins (Samantha Morton), someone who uses fierce anger and intelligence as a coping mechanism. Others would rather move on with their lives, shutting down any conversations on the record, which leads to a common trope among films about journalism: the work of reporting is not glamorous, requiring a mix of tenacity, tedium, and patience. Mulligan and Kazan play underplay their roles, the right choice for the material, so the moments where they realize the full weight of the investigation are all the more intense. It also leads to satisfying moments, like when Twohey is at a bar and some creep keeps bothering her, so she has no choice but to tell him to fuck off, repeatedly.
You may recall that the initial New York Times Weinstein story included an on-the-record interview and comment from the actor Ashley Judd. She Said recreates Kantor developing a rapport with Judd, who plays herself, a flourish that is almost awkward. In other points of the film, you do not see the most famous people head-on: Schrader films Weinstein (Mike Houston) with his back turned toward the camera, and we hear Gwyneth Paltrow’s voice only over the phone. This makes Judd’s inclusion more of an anomaly, maybe even a distraction, because otherwise Schrader (correctly) realizes that the audience can fill in the missing details without seeing famous people on camera. By the time Kantor bursts into tears when Judd decides to go on the record, it a hollow moment since the real Judd’s appearance (and tacit endorsement for this project) robs the scene of its emotional agency.
That issue notwithstanding, She Said can be thrilling because – in the hands of the right filmmaker – it is fascinating to watch skilled professionals at work. In particular, Braugher steals his scenes as Baquet, a cool-headed manager who sees right through Weinstein’s bullshit and knows just how much of it to tolerate. And yet, there is a subtext underneath the workforce drama that the film does not quite earn. Unlike Spotlight, this film wants us to believe that Kantor and Twohey were not just good journalists, but heroes who started a movement, all while maintaining an impressive work/life balance (the film goes through great pains to show they are both good mothers). That kind of self-congratulation diminishes the degree to which sexual harassment is still widespread, particularly in industries and workplaces without well-known figureheads.
Then again, ongoing systemic tolerance of harassment that means there is no way to present this material in a wholly satisfying way, and She Said then accomplishes something tricky: it retells in a famously ugly story in a way that involves us, without making us too sick to our stomachs in the telling.
Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures
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