Amanda's Picks
February 10, 2023 at 1:58 p.m.
Amanda's Picks
By Amanda [email protected]
She Said (R)
The movie She Said (R) made less than $6 million at the box office, disappearing rather quickly from the theaters. It’s streaming now on Peacock. That’s a shame because it’s a terrific film, the best about the often-maligned field of journalism, since 2015’s Spotlight.
By now, everyone knows about the Harvey Weinstein scandal and how the mega-successful film producer is now in prison for a history of sexual misconduct and abuse. But it took journalists to make the public aware of his crimes in 2017. New York Times investigative reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor broke the Weinstein story which launched the MeToo movement. They went on to win a Pulitzer Prize and to write the book “She Said”.
Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Kantor (Zoe Kazan) have no idea of the extent of Weinstein’s acts and as the extent of his misdeeds begin to become apparent and as more women come forward, the reporters face hesitant victims with non-disclosure acts, an army of lawyers and even personal threats.
She Said is not so much about a bad man doing bad things as it is about two women doing great work. Director Maria Schrader doesn’t dwell on or sensationalize the victims’ dramatic accounts. She focuses on the journalists who believed in them and helped some of them regain their voice and power. The reason they succeeded in getting their sources to finally go on the record, is that their sources liked them and trusted them. Twohey and Kantor listen and they care and they’re smart.
Having worked for a newspaper, I might have been a bit overly-fascinated with the newsroom scenes and the back and forth with the reporters’ editors. With those editors being played by Andre Braugher and Patricia Clarkson, who wouldn’t be?
Mulligan is excellent as always, delivering a sensitive and focused performance and Kazan is also very strong. She Said drops the appropriate famous names and Ashley Judd, who accused Weinstein, appears as herself. When things finally come together after years of hard work, and Twohey and Kantor get the OK to publish, that push of the computer key is kind of exciting.
She Said: 4 and a half Stars (out of 5)
Women Talking (PG-13)
Since I am catching up on my Oscar nominees, I decided to pair She Said with Women Talking (PG-13), writer/director Sarah Polley’s Oscar-nominated film about, well, women talking. The women are members of a rural Mennonite community who discover that for years they have been tranquilized and sexually attacked by the men in the community. When the men are carted off to jail they have two safe days to decide if they are all going to stay and fight or leave the community en masse.
Women from three families are charged with making that decision. They meet in a barn and because they weren’t allowed to learn to read and write, bring in a former member of the community and teacher. August (Ben Whishaw) to take notes for them. The powerhouse cast includes Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, Judith Ivey, Jessie Buckley and briefly Frances McDormand. Their discussion of “pros and cons” tackles everything from “What is forgiveness” to “Can we still get to Heaven if we leave the community?” and “Can I take my 14-year-old son or is he already a lost cause?”
My daughter Emma commented that Women Talking would make a good stage play and I totally agree. You could actually call the move “stagey”. Each character has a big scene or two where they are basically center stage. Do we get to know them? Not really. And can I just say for women who were never taught to read or write, they have better-than-average vocabularies. Ironically, I felt that I got to know the movie’s one male, the best. Whishaw’s August is a sweet, smart, fragile guy who has had a big crush on Ona (Mara) since they were kids. Ona, who is obviously very fond of August, for some reason doesn’t want him in her life. Seriously? He is the only decent man in the whole community.
I liked a lot about Women Talking, which Polley adapted from a book based on a similar case in Bolivia. Watching these women taking their lives back and getting their first taste of power was kind of inspiring in an “I’m glad that’s not me” way. Having three generations of women in a family brought up even more issues and questions and the older characters were an important part of the film. Yes, it was definitely “talky” but it’s talk that’s worth listening to. (Women Talking is only in theaters).
Women Talking: 4 Stars (out of 5)