She Said

That Weinstein’s downfall was the product of diligent reporting, dogged persistence, and the resilience of a few brave souls is essential to remember. In Maria Schrader’s artful and incendiary She Said, we’re reminded of something else that makes for one hell of a movie: It was women who did it.

“Can I quote you?” As it did throughout Jodi Kantor and Meghan Twohey’s intrepid investigative journalism for the New York Times, that question reverberates in Maria Schrader’s She Said, an understated, polished procedural that chronicles the way two reporters exposed Hollywood mega-producer Harvey Weinstein’s decades of sexual abuse and assault.

It lags in a few places, but She Said gives you a journalism story to cheer for.

While the pace is occasionally glacial and the screenplay indulges in any number of journalism-movie tropes, and She Said is not in the same league as those aforementioned classics, it is nonetheless a solid and straightforward telling, with Carey Mulligan (as Twohey) and Zoe Kazan (as Kantor) doing authentic and finely calibrated work.

The team effort of the story flows into and becomes a part of the team effort onscreen, and the fight continues.

It’s all tasteful and non-sensationalist in approach. However, some will mistake an important topic for great filmmaking. Schrader’s film relies more on the former than displaying the latter.

Ultimately, She Said is more concerned with eliciting the audience’s admiration than its understanding, its compassion, or even simply its interest.

A riveting film, beautifully acted, about the fall of movie producer Harvey Weinstein who held the fate of so many actresses in his hands and took full advantage of his power.

Just as 'Spotlight,' 'She Said" dissects a real journalistic investigation to give insight into how, in this case, Harvey Weinstein was taken down. But unlike the Academy Award-winning film, this one barely touches upon the personal struggle of its protagonists. Yes, this is a story about women trying to do some good for other women — sorority is a theme director Maria Schrader tries to permeate the entire movie with — but the lack of a more solid internal conflict makes you wonder why this wasn't turned into a documentary. The plot tries to incorporate the struggle of motherhood into the story, but the theme is forgotten very soon. 'She Said' respects the victims and their suffering and reminds us why it's so hard for them to come forward. Still, the lack of tension and the strange mix of real people portraying themselves and stand-ins doesn't let you fully immerse into this harrowing drama about exposing sexual misconduct in workplaces. The recent 'The Assistant' and its minimal approach results in something more striking that shows instead of telling. Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad film, but in my opinion, a documentary would suit the story better.

The urgency of the subject matter it presents will no doubt cause many to turn their faces away from the more blatant defects of this drama, because it certainly tries, but I'm sorry, this ain't All the President's Men. She Said is more interested in reminding you that the women involved were very brave - which is never in doubt - as it goes through a myriad of irrelevant scenes, such as the constant back and forth in cars and trains while the lead actresses pretend to be typing, because as I mentioned, its creators believe that the exposition of the theme is above how it is presented in narrative form. Perhaps that's indifferent to many people, but I think Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor's investigative and journalistic work deserved more than a basic cinematic treatment that is more interested in positioning itself as an awards season contender, rather than a crucial and informative film about the situation at the time and that clearly played a pivotal role in the now-known aftermath of Harvey Weinstein's fate. And in the end, it does not have any real repercussions within the system when we have the knowledge that this was well known by the industry, and it is known that it continues to happen with those who protect these people. Weinstein fell because there was a lot to hide, because there were people that investigated and because maybe he wasn't as powerful as he thought to make all the research go away, but in the meantime who judges the enablers? She Said isn't a bad movie, but it's nothing more than a simple recreation of something you could basically be reading on Wikipedia.

"She Said" is a very disjointed, overdramatic and uninteresting paint-by-numbers journalist procedural that doesn't give you much details about how this story was broken. It follows journalists Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) as they investigate and expose systemic sexual harassment in Hollywood, leading to the downfall of Harvey Weinstein. The finished product is a well-intentioned, competently made, but unremarkable investigative procedural that struggles to justify itself as cinematic entertainment. One critic memorably compared the film to a Wikipedia entry for an Oscar bait film, which is pretty accurate. Jodi Kantor and Meghan Twohey's book is so much more engaging and detailed in the execution of the events. The book is told from the inside of the investigation and this movie is told entirely from the outside. It does a great job of putting the survivors first but it's also the main problem wrong that is wrong with this movie because it focuses too much on their home lives and not the details of the of how they found the information. Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan are great as these real life characters but so much of this is people on phone calls or people meeting in offices. The fact that the movie begins with Meghan Twohey investigating Trump during the 2016 election and she has a phone call with James Austin Johnson who plays Trump on SNL doing the voice over a phone call shows how the tone of this movie feels like bad joke. What happened to these women who were harassed is just as upsetting and awful but there's something about the way the story is pursued like there's a scene where when Meghan Twohey comes back from maternity leave and she's asked by her editors if she wants to join Jodi Kantor on the story but it immediately cuts the conversation two another scene after 15 seconds and another scene where she goes to the home of a former Weinstein employees house and it cuts to mid-conversations without having context for why she's even there. There are moments in "All the President's Men" for instance where you feel like these reporters are in genuine danger and there's only one scene here where Jodi Kantor realizes she's being followed by an SUV and then it just drives off but it's not gone into detail and there's not much tension going on here and you know exactly where this is going and the film doesn't even pretend there's some level of suspense to generate. One of the reasons why "Spotlight" is far more superior is because "Spotlight" was much more about the investigation of the story like you had the victims sharing their stories of abuse and the journalists' lives at home but you still got a great sense of what the reporters contribution was and where all the sources and details of the story came from and there almost none of it in this movie. Like in the book it also explains where Jodi Kantor first even heard of the Harvey Weinstein story in the first place, not in the movie, it's just completely slipped over. It was like they kept all of the key incidents but they left out the information that actually explains everything. The whole root of the problem is the screenplay from Rebecca Lenkiewicz whose previous films (Ida, Disobedience, Colette and Small Axe) all which had more fully developed female lead characters at the center and dive deep into their stories but it's probably because those three previous films she co-wrote them with the director, so she's clearly not good at writing screenplays on her own, what a shame. The movie depicts important events and engages with worthy ideas, but the direction is lackluster, and the overall presentation is bland. The stylistic toolkit is limited, with certain shots being used over and over again. Then there's the underdeveloped script, which fails to adequately flesh out the protagonists (though Mulligan and Kazan do a lot with what they are given). All told, there are articles and essays online that cover the same story in a more compelling and urgent way. I would suggest you read the book instead or watch the Hulu documentary "Untouchable" which are both more interesting and informative and then this artless film that's masquerading as cinema.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]