MEDIOCREMOVIE.CLUB
  • Reviews
  • Side Pieces
  • Shane of Thrones
  • Podcast
  • About
  • Archives
  • Game of Thrones Fantasy

The Post

7/17/2018

0 Comments

 

C+

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks
​
Review by Jon Kissel
Picture

​Under assault from declining readership, corporate consolidation, and ideological fragmentation, Steven Spielberg clearly thought journalism could use a pick-me-up.  His latest adult drama, The Post, dramatizes one of the profession’s greatest hits as a clarion call for speaking truth to power while also finding of-the-moment hot-button topics like women in the boardroom.  Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight tread similar ground in 2015, and The Post shares a co-writer with Spotlight in Josh Singer, but that earlier film resisted the triumphalism that Spielberg cannot help but indulge in.  As old-fashioned as it is contemporary, The Post makes the viewer wonder if more cynical times still have a place for optimists like Spielberg.  
The Post tells the story of the release of the Pentagon Papers, an in-depth, cold-eyed, and negative review of US action towards Vietnam.  Classified less for its content and more for the embarrassment it would cause government officials up to and including several presidents, State Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys) can’t take the lies being told nightly on TV anymore, and he smuggles a copy out of his office with the intent of releasing it to the press.  He goes to the New York Times first, but a court order prevents them from publishing.  Washington Post reporter Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk) hunts Ellsberg down and is able to bring the Pentagon Papers to his boss, editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), and Bradlee’s boss, publisher and owner Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep), who both have strong ulterior motives in deciding what to do with this huge scoop.  Bradlee has long been frustrated with the Post’s standing as forever in the shadow of the Times and strongly argues for publishing, no matter the cost.  Graham has to consider both her status as a social maven to many of the officials that will be exposed in the report and the company’s looming IPO on Wall Street.  Bradlee can always find another job, but with Graham, her family’s legacy is on the line.
​
By far the strongest aspect of The Post is its interest in what this viewer would have called the most dangerous problem in government until a certain someone made an ominous descent down an escalator.  Subtle acts of corruption have made it easy for powerful people to get their preferred narrative into the world.  By spending time together, people like Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood) have convinced journalists like Graham that they are good people who couldn’t possibly be duplicitous, and therefore go unchallenged.  The script by Singer and Liz Hannah implicitly understands that Graham’s dinner parties have made it difficult for her to do her job well, that her treasured position of hostess has crippled her critical thinking.  By casting aside her friendship with McNamara, and Bradlee reconsidering his own with the equally-complicit Kennedys, the Post is able to do groundbreaking work on the Pentagon Papers, and prime the pump for their looming masterpieces during Watergate. 

The Post has more than the untenable social relationship between the press and the powerful on its mind.  Graham repeatedly finds herself as the only woman in rooms where decisions are being made by men that are brasher and bolder than she.  Streep does unsurprisingly nuanced work in showing the internal rise and fall of confidence and reticence, with the latter reigning as the film starts and the former taking control as the film continues, albeit somewhat suddenly.  She and Spielberg do empathetic work in evoking the ease of staying quiet and the courage of speaking up, though the film trips on itself by not having faith in the power of these scenes.  What was clear thanks to Streep’s performance needs to be said out loud with the requisite John Williams score behind it. 

The film’s tentative relationship to gender equity only extends as far as Streep.  It treats two superb actors badly, saddling them with support roles and the film’s worst lines. Carrie Coon plays a dogged reporter who doesn’t differentiate herself and is then given the impossible task of having to make a Supreme Court verdict emotional and compelling.  Like Amy Ryan in Bridge of Spies, Sarah Paulson is wasted as Hanks’ wife.  The Post’s effective B-plot of Graham stepping fully into a leadership role brings attention to the insufficiency of the rest of the film around it.

The Post’s large gaps, including some unfortunate Nixon interludes that fail to meld his White House recordings with the device Spielberg uses to illustrate them, don’t mask what is otherwise a propulsive and entertaining work.  Excepting the abysmal Ready Player One, the venerable director is moving into a competency and decency porn phase of his long career, one where people who know what they’re doing are allowed to do it.  I have no idea how an industrial press works, but Spielberg makes it fun to look at.  If this phase continues, he will hopefully pick up the added trick of letting his work speak for itself.  C+
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Side Pieces

    Random projects from the MMC Universe. 

    Categories

    All
    Action
    Adventure
    Author - Bryan
    Author - Drew
    Author - Jon
    Author - Phil
    Author - Sean
    Best Of 2016
    Best Of 2017
    Best Of 2018
    Best Of 2019
    Best Of 2020
    Best Of 2021
    Best Of 2022
    Best Of The Decade
    Classics
    Comedy
    Crime
    Documentary
    Drama
    Ebertfest
    Game Of Thrones
    Historical
    Horror
    Musical
    Romance
    Sci Fi
    Thriller
    TV
    Western

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015

    RSS Feed