She Said Movie Review

“She Said” Movie Review

by Luke Bonanno

Spotlight, for Harvey Weinstein.

That must have been the pitch given for She Said. That is, indeed, the movie we get. But whereas that 2015 film about Boston Globe journalists uncovering a history of sexual abuse and cover-up within the Catholic Church won the Academy Award for Best Picture and stands as one of the finest dramas of the past twenty-five years, this one about two working mothers at The New York Times gathering decades of accusations of sexual harassment and rape against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein is merely a polished film you won't feel comfortable saying anything bad about.

The fall of Weinstein in 2017 remains a watershed moment in not just the entertainment industry, but industry at large. One of the most influential and decorated figures in Hollywood for some thirty years, Weinstein had used his power for sexual gratification, bullying, and a variety of malfeasance somehow to complete silence and impunity. At Miramax in the 1980s and '90s and later the fully independent studio bearing the surname of he and his brother, Weinstein developed the reputation of a power player.

Over the years, Weinstein was thanked thirty-four times in Academy Award acceptance speeches, well ahead of God and second only to Steven Spielberg. Originally, the brothers' studio dabbled in indies and foreign film acquisitions, but they would come to be an arm of Disney, producing and distributing Best Picture winners The English Patient and Shakespeare in Love and such iconic, celebrated works as Pulp Fiction, Scream, and Good Will Hunting.

Brash and exacting, Harvey was well-known, widely feared, and, more often than not, quite successful for his heavy-handed awards campaigning and his hands-on involvement in the creative process. His reputation was such that virtually anyone watching the HBO series "Entourage" would have known of whom the recurring vulgar executive Harvey Weingard was a thinly-veiled caricature. No one in the industry of any renown could claim to have never dealt with him. Acting titans Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lawrence won Oscars in films he produced and among his many repeat collaborators were Quentin Tarantino and Brad Pitt.

Pitt ranks highly among the producers of She Said, a celebration of the Times exposé that brought Weinstein down and whose shockwaves are still felt throughout the professional workplace.

The film opens in 2016, when Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) is trying to convince women to go on the record with their claims of sexual assault against then-candidate and soon President Donald Trump. One of them does and ends up with a padded envelope full of human feces. Twohey gets intimidating calls threatening rape and murder. This prologue provides, probably unnecessarily, context for why victims are reluctant to attach their names to accusations against powerful figures. That reluctance is something that Twohey and fellow investigative reporter Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) run into repeatedly during the months in which compose an article on claims of abuse leveled against Weinstein.

Like Spotlight, She Said sees the nobility in journalism at its purest and most essential. But that movie had a much more compelling and universal story, a wide-reaching villain in the church officials and lawyers who conspired to silence the accounts of victims, and some of the finest actors in the business wringing the intrigue out of every breakthrough and development of that investigation. Even without much visual imagination or opportunity, Spotlight made -- and still makes -- for arresting cinema of the highest order. Arriving seven years later, She Said cannot help but suffer from the comparisons it invites by sticking so close to director Tom McCarthy's playbook.

There's no obvious solution to that problem. I'm sure that German director Maria Schrader (Unorthodox, I'm Your Man) and Universal Pictures are hoping that not enough people have seen or remember seeing Spotlight so that they might not recognize the diminished returns of this unaffiliated spiritual sequel.

The one big difference between this and Spotlight is that here, the heroes are predominantly women and the victims all are. In the wake of Weinstein's downfall, Hollywood has made so many pushes to celebrate diversity and female empowerment both onscreen and behind the scenes. There is even a diversity requirement now in place, albeit an easily cleared one, to compete for Academy Awards. No one would or should criticize this sudden attempt to undo a century of sexism in the industry, but at the same time, few would argue that movies have gotten better as a direct result of this newfound awareness.

With the exception of the influential and respected Pitt (who also produced Women Talking, another one of the year's buzzed-about women-led films), there are not many males attached to this film. Andre Braugher plays Dean Baquet, the kind of editor who shuts down Weinstein's telephonic kvetching in a way that invites audience applause (and skepticism). Both Twohey and Kantor are married to white men, who stay in the shadows juggling parenthood and cooking duties like housewives historically have in male-centric dramatizations. Beyond them, the film is a showcase for female actors and crew members, including cinematographer Natasha Braier (Honey Boy) and screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Ida, Disobedience).

In light of that design of women celebrating women determined to help women who have been victimized and silenced by men, it is difficult to be critical. It is tempting to say that this movie arrives with peak award season timing exists to exploit abuse and systemic injustice to accolade and personal gain. One also might question whether something feels off about using Weinstein's preferred medium to immortalize him as one of the world's biggest known scumbags. So hefty is the disgraced executive's presence that we never get a clear look at the actor playing him (Mike Houston). He is presented as this larger than life villain despite his real life misdeeds fueling this story and leaving an expansive trail of trauma across the globe in their wake.

Multiple cast members here, including Patricia Clarkson, Jennifer Ehle, and Samantha Morton, have Miramax and Weinstein Company credits in their past. So too does Ashley Judd, who plays herself, one of the highest-profile victims of Weinstein's hotel massage-based predation. Gwyneth Paltrow gets mentioned multiple times as a potential source, but is never shown, although a lush residence has the role of her estate.

In a world without Spotlight, She Said would be a striking procedural harking back to All the President's Men. As is, it stands as a partial reminder of why the movie industry has changed so dramatically in just the past five years.

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