Worth: $18.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, Samantha Morton, Jennifer Ehle, Anastasia Barzee, Ashley Judd, Angela Yeoh
Intro:
… an extremely solid entry into the investigative journalism canon …
Director Maria Schrader (I’m Your Man, Unorthodox) knows that flashiness is unnecessary in documenting the journey of New York Times reporters Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) as they research the article that in conjunction with Ronan Farrow’s New Yorker piece brought down one of Hollywood’s most prolific predators, Harvey Weinstein.
The story is the sensation and Schrader, in conjunction with screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Disobedience) – working from Kantor and Twohey’s 2017 article and 2019 book She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement – never extend the film to melodramatic territory, instead allowing the voices of the women who were victimised by Weinstein to take the lead.
Perhaps the most visually striking aspect of the film is the opening. A young woman in 1992 is walking her dog when she sees a period piece being filmed. Soon, she’s welcomed on to the set and is working as a runner. The film cuts to a scene where the woman is literally running down a London street, terrified and tear-stained.
We move forward in time to the offices of The New York Times (Schrader filmed in the building) and the publication has just broken the Bill O’Reilly scandal. Twohey had been working on a story about then Republican candidate Donald Trump and his mistreatment of women. Despite the story being out there and having sources (one of whom was harassed), Trump managed to win the election. There is an air of elation over Bill O’Reilly being unmasked as a predator, but also a feeling of dejection that the highest office in the land is now held by a man who said he could grab women by the pussy.
Twohey is pregnant and exhausted, but still has to fend off abusive calls from O’Reilly’s office – an associate on the phone spits out “Are you a feminist?” as if identifying as one was almost criminal in the 21st century. Meanwhile, Kantor is working with her editors to come up with a piece that would further investigate institutional misogyny in the workplace. Kantor has heard rumours that there was something unsavoury going on with Miramax (initially brought to the attention of people by Lena Dunham questioning Weinstein’s donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaign).
Initially, Kantor reaches out to actress Rose McGowan (voice acted by Keilly McQuail), who made an early claim of Weinstein abusing her. McGowan refuses to go on the record, because she sees all institutions as sexist. She told people of Weinstein’s attack on her at the time, but nothing was done, and Weinstein at that stage was an Oscar producing machine. Kantor reaches out to Ashley Judd (playing herself) who tells her of the toll that refusing Weinstein’s advances took on her career. “I still need to work,” she says to Kantor as to why she’s hesitant to go on the record.
After the birth of her daughter and a bout of post-natal depression, Twohey returns to the office. There, editor Rebecca Corbet (Patricia Clarkson) matches her up with Kantor on the Miramax story and the gruelling month’s long investigation begins in earnest.
Kantor and Twohey discuss whether an investigation into Hollywood is really the best use of their resources; after all, actresses have voices. It soon becomes very clear that those voices, even the voices of Oscar winners such as Gwyneth Paltrow, have been routinely silenced or ignored. As important as the big voices are and were, Twohey and Kantor realise that there have been a series of smaller voices – Weinstein employees, who have been equally silenced.
It doesn’t take long before Weinstein is clued in on the fact that The New York Times is writing about him. He secures the services of celebrity lawyer Lisa Bloom (Anastasia Barzee), who had acted on behalf of the women who accused both Bill Cosby and Bill O’Reilly of assault. People already fearing reprisal from Weinstein are shut down even further. Editor in chief Dean Baquet (a brilliant, no-nonsense Andre Braugher) is unfazed by Weinstein’s implied threats and sends Kantor on the road to speak to women that worked for Weinstein.
Three women in particular form the human face of Weinstein’s victims. The young woman we first see in the beginning of the film is Laura Madden (played in 2017 by Jennifer Ehle). Laura is dealing with her own issues; she has just been diagnosed with breast cancer and has to undergo a mastectomy. At first, she is uninterested in taking calls from the reporters because she just wants to move on with her life. A vaguely threatening call from a former Weinstein colleague changes her mind and she relates her experience to Kantor in a face-to-face meeting on a Cornwall beach. After recounting her devastating encounter with Weinstein in his London residence, she says something that is true for so many of the women he destroyed: “I was young, I was finding my voice, and he took it away from me.”
Kantor also meets with former Miramax employee, Zelda Perkins (played with absolute precision by Samantha Morton). She recounts Weinstein’s assault on another young employee, Rowena Chiu (played in later life by Angela Yeoh), at The Venice Film Festival. Chiu and Perkins have both been silenced by NDAs. Perkins says she only signed hers because Harvey promised to seek treatment and Miramax promised to look into corporate workplace issues with sexual harassment. She feels that she signed away her voice for nothing because nothing changed.
Schrader chooses to never show the assaults. The closest the audience gets is the disembodied voices of one of his victims, model, Ambra Gutierrez wearing a police wire and talking to Weinstein in the hallway of a hotel. Cinematographer Natasha Brier (The Neon Demon) creates the hallway as a space of horror – it is almost unbearable to hear the voices and see the space as it expands and contracts as Ambra’s voice consistently tells Weinstein that she’s uncomfortable. Similarly, Schrader uses discarded clothing, a bathrobe, and the running of a shower to convey the assaults. It is a canny and powerful choice; the audience fills in the blanks and the dreadfulness seeps in as all-pervasive.
The intricacies of crafting a journalistic piece that accused one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, and by extension, America, are pored over. Mulligan and Kazan give humanity to their characters, although the film being based on their work isn’t as interested in them as people, as one would expect. What it is interested in, is just how pervasive and accepted the practice of sexual predation in the workplace is. Taking down Weinstein re-ignited the #MeToo movement, where excuses like the one Lisa Bloom proffers for Weinstein being “An old dinosaur learning new ways” are not accepted.
As the film tells you in pre-title crawl, Weinstein was arrested and is facing more than 23 years in jail from convictions in New York, with further trials set for London and Los Angeles. She Said is a deliberately meticulous and slow film that allows the anger to rise up in the audience as they come to realise how long and how easily Weinstein was able to prey on women.
Schrader and Lenkiewicz’s rejection of on-screen salaciousness is the film’s greatest strength; they let the events unfold and allow women to finally tell their own stories – the choice of a few women including Laura Madden, Ashley Judd, and Rowena Chiu (bravely defying her NDA) set a match under a celluloid coated nightmare and started a fire that burned across other industries. Although there remain many abusers in the entertainment industry, the scrutiny is increased.
She Said is aware that it is only part of the story and that much more will come, but it is an extremely solid entry into the investigative journalism canon and lets women know that if they speak together, they will be heard.
