She Said
A horror show is eloquently and passionately exposed in the true story of two female reporters on the trail of Harvey Weinstein.
Survival course: Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan and Patricia Clarkson
It is about this time of year that the name Harvey Weinstein shone bright in the Hollywood firmament. Around now he would be unleashing, and ruthlessly promoting, the films he deemed worthy of Oscar consideration. And now, many years later, a movie condemning his reputation as a human being is being touted for the same golden statuettes that he craved. If She Said may seem like a shark feeding on a whale, a form of Hollywood cannibalism, it is more akin to describing the first ripples of a tsunami that was to wash over society and the workplace worldwide. For a story that promises lurid sensationalism, She Said plays the opposite game of a film like Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole (1951) or Samuel Fuller’s Shock Corridor (1963), focusing instead on the emotional backwash. And so, as the evidence accumulates, so the camera lingers on empty hotel rooms and corridors, allowing the imagination to fill in the images conjured up by the statements and recordings on the soundtrack. One lasts for two-and-a-half minutes – and was loaned to the production by the New York police.
Like All the President’s Men and Spotlight, this is primarily the real-life pursuit of a newspaper story, with Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) the Woodward and Bernstein of the #MeToo movement. This is not a dramatisation of the horrors committed by a monster drunk with the licence of power and ego, but a realistic portrayal of the dogged graft ploughed into the endless pursuit of the truth. Through the very understatement of its approach, the film pulls off a series of blows to the solar plexus as the threads of a monumental exposé start to knit together. Every new admission and confession marks another breakthrough, as women numbed by years of silence, gagged by multiple NDAs, start to speak up. Like all the other survivors, Laura Madden (Jennifer Ehle) is reluctant to dredge up old memories or to risk reprisals. She was just twenty-three when she began work for Miramax, but after her encounter with Weinstein “it was like he took my voice that day – just when I was about to start finding it.”
What She Said shows is that Weinstein was much more than a sexual predator, more than a dirty old man out for a quick grope. He made it his business to nurture fear, to destroy livelihoods and to ruin reputations, all to conceal his lust for a cheap thrill. And there is an air of the incredulous about the film, as Megan Twohey is verbally abused by a bully on the phone (she’s told “you are a disgusting human being”), a bully who ends up in the White House. Then the emphasis shifts to another predator, a Hollywood mogul renowned for his prestige productions (The English Patient, Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare in Love) – and known for an unreserved admiration within the industry. Then the lone voice of an abused actress is joined by the relatively well-known Rose McGowan, and then by other, even better-known actresses. When Ashley Judd turns up playing herself, the boundaries between dramatisation and documentary become blurred and the film takes on an urgent edge, sucking the viewer into a story that still feels terribly fresh and relevant.
Yet regardless of its incendiary subject matter, She Said is remarkable for other reasons. It is an elegantly mounted drama, with a slow burn intensity that increases as the sheer scale of Weinstein’s loathsome legacy becomes apparent. As the crusading journalists, juggling motherhood on the side, Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan are empathetic, sympathetic women with whom we engage, both on their emotional and professional journeys. Megan Twohey has anger to spare and Jodi Kantor tears to shed, as their Herculean undertaking not only begins to take shape but has the power to move mountains across the globe.
At the time of going to press, so to speak, She Said is being tipped for Academy Award recognition in the categories of best picture, best actress (Kazan), best supporting actress (Mulligan) and best screenplay. Not ironically, the film is actually directed by an actress, the German star Maria Schrader who, back in 1999, won the Silver Bear for her performance in Aimée & Jaguar. It seems fitting that an actress gets to have the last word; and to deliver it so eloquently and powerfully is a triumph.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, Jennifer Ehle, Samantha Morton, Ashley Judd, Zach Grenier, Peter Friedman, Tom Pelphrey, Adam Shapiro, Sean Cullen, Angela Yeoh, Sarah Ann Masse, Molly Windsor, Edward Astor Chin, Ashley Chiu, Mike Houston, Gwyneth Paltrow (voice only, as herself), Judith Godrèche (voice only, as herself), James Austin Johnson (voice only, as Donald Trump).
Dir Maria Schrader, Pro Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, Ex Pro Brad Pitt, Screenplay Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Ph Natasha Braier, Pro Des Meredith Lippincott, Ed Hansjörg Weißbrich, Music Nicholas Britell, Costumes Brittany Loar, Sound Leslie Shatz, Dialect coach Sarah McGuinness.
Annapurna Pictures/Plan B Entertainment-Universal Pictures.
128 mins. USA. 2022. US Rel: 18 November 2022. UK Rel: 25 November 2022. Cert. 15.
