She Said Review
A middling attempt at capturing a pivotal time in history, that wins when it gives the space for the victims’ stories to be told, but loses when the cliched hero worship of the reporters sings out.
New York Times (NYT) reporters Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jod Kantor (Zoe Kazan) break one of the most important stories in a generation - the story of the many sexual assaults of Harvey Weinstein. To do so, despite their respective personal struggles, they need to not only collate the stories and evidence amidst blocking attempts from Hollywood’s most powerful predator, but also convince these women to tell their story, and go on the record. The story helped launch the #MeToo movement and shattered decades of silence around the subject of sexual assault in Hollywood.
Directed by Maria Schrader, She Said is an interesting mix of storytelling.
On the one hand, the film follows two reporters as they meet with a series of victims of maligned and convicted former film producer Harvey Weinstein, giving each in turn the chance to tell her story. And those stories are all deeply affecting, buoyed by incredibly nuanced performances from Jennifer Ehle, Angela Yeoh, and even Ashely Judd, playing herself. It’s at moments like this when the movie really hits home, and when the real horrors of the Weinstein era are so deeply felt.
Then there’s the flipside, where the film gives a hero treatment to reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor. It’s here, where the film is distinctly let down. Twohey and Kantor are depicted as the absolute saviors of the piece, with all the nuance of a sledgehammer. Their characters are written as if the dialogue was slotting nicely into a NYT report itself, but in reality sounds like nothing a human being would ever say. While Mulligan does her best with some truly terrible material, Kazan doesn’t come off quite so well. Ultimately, both feel like cardboard cutouts rather than real people, and you’ll come away from this movie feeling you know less, not more, than you did before about Twohey and Kantor.
And the problems with the reporting depiction just grow from there. She Said is a hodgepodge of journalist cliches, from the group sitting around a computer to collectively publish an article (as if they didn’t all have other work to be getting on with), and writers jetsetting around the world on a whim (as if the print industry wasn’t struggling with finances), to people hanging up phones mid-coverations without a word of goodbye, and calling each other to confirm they’ll go on the record because they have to “as a woman, and as a Christian”. When compared with something like Spotlight, the work of journalists here is shown as hacky, beatific, and tasteless, all at once. In trying to ascribe importance, it does away with it entirely.
That’s a shame, because there is a lot to like in the performances of the side characters here. The stories are told with respect, and also a blistering anger that feels appropriate. It’s a shame that the focus becomes the reporters, and the poor creative work around their characters.
