We assume, when one of the victims finally agrees to share her story with New York Times investigative journalists Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan), that this will be the most harrowing moment of director Maria Schrader’s richly compelling and superbly acted drama.
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| Investigative journalists Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan, far left) and Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan), along with assistant managing editor Rebecca Corbett (Patricia Clarkson, far right), listen with admiration and delight as executive editor Dean Baquet (Andre Braugher) crisply puts an irate phone caller in his place. |
The listener: appalled, silent, eyes growing wider by the second.
We viewers: equally stone-silent, sickened and enraged.
The story moves on; we exhale shakily, thinking OK, the worst is over.
But no: Twohey and Kantor soon reach another victim, sit quietly as another — mercilessly similar — confession emerges, this time made even more intense by the performances, and the way Schrader cuts back and forth between framed one-shots of the two actresses.
And then another. Even more awful, in part because of the repetition, the familiarity, the by-now recognized patterns of an apex sexual predator.
This is smart and savvy filmmaking. She Said deserves place of pride alongside its all-time best cousins: All the President’s Men and Spotlight.
When done persuasively — and Schrader’s film is very persuasive — nothing beats a well-constructed investigative journalism drama. They’re part mystery (just how deep and widespread IS this story?), part puzzle (how does one finesse details, acknowledgments and confessions from people unwilling or unable to talk?) and part building suspense and rage-fueled anticipation (what will it take to nail this bastard?).
Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s sharp script is based on Twohey, Kantor and Rebecca Corbett’s months-long New York Times investigation into the shocking behavior of Weinstein — and the wink-wink-nudge-nudge Hollywood attitude that tolerated and even conspired to maintain it — and their subsequent 2019 book, She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement.
This film is rigorously authentic: Names are named — to an often surprising degree — dialogue is lifted from transcripts, progress unfolds as it occurred (if, perhaps, accelerated a bit to accommodate a two-hour film).
Events begin in the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election, as Megan pursues and publishes a series of stories about the sexual misconduct of candidate Donald Trump (who responds as one would expect).
When Trump nonetheless wins the election, Megan is crestfallen: stunned that these revelations apparently made no difference at all. A bit of time passes; she and husband Jim Rutman (Tom Pelphrey) become new parents, and Megan spirals into postpartum depression, likely exacerbated by her disillusionment.
The transition is heartbreaking, this once-feisty crusading journalist, so sure of herself, reduced to Mulligan’s wan, uncertain smiles and loss of purpose.
Meanwhile, newbie Times journalist Jodi — shepherded by assistant managing editor Corbett (Patricia Clarkson, at her steely best) — has begun to pick at the threads of a rumored Hollywood sex scandal. Jodi isn’t getting very far; her one contact, Rose McGowan (heard solely as a telephone voice), disenchanted over the way her rape allegations have been ignored, refuses to help.
Megan returns to work and agrees to partner with Jodi on what has become a rapidly expanding collection of allegations … but with no firm evidence, nobody willing to speak on the record. This new pursuit proves just the catharsis Megan needed.
Mulligan and Kazan are a well-matched pair. The former’s Megan is seasoned, cynical, self-assured, patient when necessary. Kazan’s Jodi is younger, eager, enthusiastic, more impulsive, and inclined to wear her heart on her sleeve.
Schrader and Lenkiewicz balance the investigative frustrations with welcome sequences of these two women at home: Megan forever “rescuing” Jim after a long day of his monitoring their infant newcomer; Jodi and husband Ron Lieber (Adam Shapiro) doting on their two young daughters, the elder becoming just old enough to clock the significance of the many phone calls her mother takes.
These moments deftly establish the warmth and love of healthy family relationships, as contrasted sharply with the depravity of the daytime investigation. (It must be said, however, that — as presented — these two women are blessed with the most patient and understanding husbands ever created by God.)
Even worse than Weinstein’s degenerate behavior, though, is the “network” that Megan and Jodi soon uncover: the Miramax studio executives (Weinstein’s company), lawyers, district attorneys, tabloid publishers, talent agents, gossip columnists and PR firms that conspired to conceal and bury the film mogul’s transgressions. (We viewers are shocked into stunned silence.)
And, most damningly, the impenetrable legal barrier: a series of non-disclosure agreements signed by the victims.
Jennifer Ehle is mesmerizing as Irish-born Laura Madden, who — in this film’s prologue — is barely out of her teens when she joins a location film shoot in 1992 (played during this flashback by the equally fine Lola Petticrew). All too soon, tragically, she has a life-destroying encounter with Weinstein in a Dublin Hotel room.
A quarter-century later, fighting breast cancer, Ehle delivers this film’s most wrenching line:
“He took my voice … before I fully knew what it was.”
Samantha Morton is equally powerful as Zelda Perkins: crisp, cool, determined and out for blood. She vividly recalls having been a young assistant at Miramax’s London offices, back in the day, when fellow employee Rowena Chiu confided that she had been assaulted by Weinstein.
Andre Braugher exudes calm, no-nonsense authority as New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet. Watching him capably confront Weinstein, during occasional phone calls — unperturbed by the studio mogul’s bullying nature — is one of this film’s supreme pleasures.
But acknowledgment of service above and beyond goes to Ashley Judd, who — tellingly, bravely, crucially — plays herself.
Authenticity is augmented by the fact that production designer Meredith Lippincott benefitted from two weeks of location shooting within the New York Times’ Midtown Manhattan offices. She also adds all manner of captivating detail to Megan and Jodi’s home environments, both perfect storms of cheerful clutter that neither family can keep up with.
The most depressing takeaway — as the end credits begin to roll, and as Tuesday evening’s Sacramento preview audience burst into applause — is the knowledge that Weinstein robbed the film industry of countless talented young women who might have blossomed into producers, directors and writers of strength, integrity and passion … but who instead retreated to other careers as an act of self-preservation.
This is one for the ages.
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