She Said. I’ve been waiting to see what Carey Mulligan would do on the heels of Promising Young Woman, and it seems she’s fallen right into another important and progressive story for women. She Said will detail the steps of the New York Times investigations that lead to the exposure of Harvey Weinstein and extensive lurid acts; abuses of power stretching over 30 years as a prominent film producer. This movie probably knows it’s going to be compared to Spotlight, another movie about groundbreaking journalistic endeavors – and I’m sure it’ll be hoping to replicate Spotlight’s success too.
Following a baby, reporter Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) is back at work for the New York Times, and jumps in with Jodi Cantor (Zoe Kazan) who is investigating misconduct in the workplace, specifically Hollywood, following a story by actress Rose McGowan of sexual assault by Harvey Weinstein. From there, this movie can be seen as a series of phone calls, walking away with the phone in hand to find a clear place to hear, and interviews with many sources, almost as if they were crime show reenactments, depicting the legwork required for this arduous inquiry. Dealing with such a real and sensitively disturbing issue, this is an emotionally supercharged movie, and deservedly so. This movie is hea-vy – I knew it was going to be when I walked in the cinema with my brain, but sometimes I’ve got to stop and better prepare my heart. When Jodi is elated, that Ashley Judd will finally put her name to the final piece, I was tearing up right there with her – movies have really figured out that the most horrific stories are based on true events, ey?
This movie gives time and space to each victim’s stories, assumingly drawing on the real-life interviews and audio recordings of the actual investigation. It expertly details the spread of misery outwards from everyone who had an unjustifiable experience with Weinstein, and how it continued because it wasn’t stopped. I think it’s fair to extract an imagining of people like Harvey Weinstein as a cancer, ruining careers and ‘life’s trajectory’, as the Irish Laura Madden (Jennifer Ehle) puts it. The trauma brought back to the faces of those after years have passed is confronting, and not surprising, but shouldn’t be a given for how horrible it is, coming about by being silenced, gagged, and powerless in knowing abuse is probably still happening again. I really liked the suggestion that in post-partum depression, perhaps there’s a link to knowing how daughters are treated in the wider world, and how much protection from society’s great machine will be out of a mother’s control – who knows how scientific that claim is, but it’s a sharp philosophical thought.
But through the journey, I had a nagging sensation that the emotionality of the movie wasn’t matched by its detail orientation. I don’t know if it’s necessarily an issue with the scope of the movie, or that I simply wanted a larger picture layout of the entire case. Perhaps it’s one of those instances where I watch a movie and feel like something is missing or could be better, but on a second viewing, I’ll be more inclined to accept what’s happening for what it is, with less scrutiny. Even still, drawing unfortunate comparison to the Best Picture Academy Award winner of 2016 in this instance, Spotlight did an excellent job of defining the monster, in what the church meant to Boston. I had framing questions that these journalists never discuss – how influential is Harvey Weinstein seen to be in the film industry? How prominent is Miramax? How powerful is Miramax in the zeitgeist of moviemaking, the process, and culture in general? I hope this movie isn’t avoiding going into information on the movie industry because it is a movie, and mustn’t expose too much of the secret sauce. Honestly, I appreciated the Donald Trump segment of the movie the best, highlighting the stakes with an election, framing women’s outrage at the Trump allegations being accepted as ‘locker-room talk’, and the downside of harassment, and the spin put on those who speak out. Also, with a movie like this, I still think you have to try to define the other side of the argument, if only to knock it down, even if it’s ridiculously silly. Say, Weinstein is a businessman fulfilling dreams for many people – perhaps he works 80-hour weeks, perhaps beautiful women are his mode to wind down. That never makes abuse okay, and I’m not saying that’s even the shallow justification used by those around Weinstein, because the movie never gives me one (other than perhaps lawyer Lanny Davis (Peter Friedman) saying these settlements are just ‘pretty normal’). But how did so many people in the film industry overlooked this destructive pattern? Why did so many people fall in line? Why weren’t young women valued by mature people?
There’s also a pick to be had at journalism. Journalism is the hero of this movie, but their industry supposedly hid these allegations back at the Venice Film Festival in 1998 in exchange for exclusives, according to one of the sources. So, what’s changed for them? It is surely more than the anger at the Trump election. Again, Spotlight was able to give an explanation to this, as the allegations it investigates never got to journalists, the scope was overlooked due to a blind love of the church, or the hustle and bustle of a busy daily newsroom took its toll, while the investigation needed a team like Spotlight to take its time. Spotlight was also able to frame the movie’s time period as ‘the last of the good old days’ as everything was beginning to move online, quicker, and cheaper, and this was a time when journalism could still be hearty and proud, disputedly, or not. Perhaps these Weinstein allegations have ‘moved out of the social pages’ and into true crime where it belongs because more empathetic women are now in positions of power where they have a final say in journalism – but the movie never makes me know that; that’s just another one of my guesstimations. Plus, while I’m complaining, I cannot neglect my favourite adage that ‘Rachel McAdams just makes everything better’, constantly writing while interviewing in Spotlight, while Kazan’s Cantor writes minimally, getting swept up herself in the stories – it’s a petty thing to get hung up on as they are based on different people, but every little bit counts when you’re trying to be authentic in your storytelling.
Zoe Kazan was a charming pipsqueak in The Big Sick, and she’s fluttered around since then, landing on a very big role here, providing the heart to this drama. A Best Supporting Actress nomination could be in the pipeline, maybe. It’s harder to connect with Carey Mulligan but I think her character is supposed to be cold and focused. She gets the enjoyable scene of staring down Weinstein, and a shouty moment where she objects to a guy at a bar. Golly, that moment made me think on the physical disadvantage of someone like Kazan verses a guy who might be muscly and pushy, and it helps me understand girls when they say they just go numb in sexual assault as a hopes to survive it. I wonder how audience members who are victims of sexual abuse themselves view this movie – are they proud or angry that this is getting such attention now, but not soon enough? Must they avoid it for it triggers trauma? I’m sure it’s an array of everything. Something so great to have come out of the #MeToo movement is a liaison in these industries and worksites as people don’t want to be responsible for facilitating debilitating altercations in their space again. It’s come from a desire to be better through awareness, to cut these cancers out, and voice up before abuse can occur, and has this story’s investigation to thank as a huge catalyst for the #MeToo movement.
Patricia Clarkson and Andre Braugher are also always solid contributors, and their presence brings gravitas. Getting Ashley Judd to take part in this project is a massive win too. But you know what, She Said reminds me of a lightly spread peanut butter sandwich – still wholesome and delicious, but I know I’ve had fuller peanut butter sandwiches before. Spotlight is a high bar, but I’d say She Said is just not quite as good as what I can remember of On the Basis of Sex, another movie relaying the parameters and challenges on a real-world issue that was then conquered. Maybe I’m going in hard on what is ultimately a very good movie, and don’t let my criticism make you think that I wouldn’t recommend She Said to a friend. These sorts of movies about giant cultural shifts are best constructed in hindsight through a lens of time, but parts of this movement we are still living with – Donald Trump just announced he’ll run again for President for one thing, so we don’t exactly know how that strand ends. But an issue like silence on sexual abuse cannot wait and shouldn’t wait to be… pardon the pun… put under the spotlight. So, I’ll take the good with the bad, or so I say.
4.0
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