The Post tells the story of the Washington Post's tough decision to print the Pentagon Papers after the New York Times had been legally barred in doing so, in fear of losing the business altogether and/or everyone going to jail. At one end you've got Ben Bradlee (Hanks), a headstrong, hard-nosed editor who's willing to risk everything (for him, it's not really that much and his wife reminds him of this) in order to get the papers out there to the people. On the other side of this is owner of the paper Kay Graham (Meryl Streep) who keeps getting conflicting advice from bankers, investors, political allies, and a personal advisor all telling her if she prints these papers... papers that prove the American government sent soldiers to Vietnam fully knowing they coudln't win... she would lose everything (and she had everything to lose).
The story, which mirrors a lot of what's going on in today's political climate, could not be more suitable to be filmed right now. All of the lies that are suppressed in our own government, the censoring of the press, hell even Nixon stating that the Washington Post is no longer allowed at the White House anymore has some severe connections with what's happening today and it's terrifying. And Nixon still knew half of what he was doing! I understand why Spielberg felt he had to make this film and get it to theaters this year. When there is a good story that has this many parallels with what's happening in our world now, it certainly falls under the category of must-see. And it's a very well directed film. Lately Spielberg's biopics, like Lincoln and Munich, have this tendency to start off very, very, very slowly. As Spielberg has matured as a Director, he's learned to take his time with things. And sometimes it's to a fault. Like the aforementioned films, The Post also begins quite slowly and it was difficult for me to feel hooked into the story for the first half hour or so. I felt like Spielberg was telling a story he assumed I already knew. I was lost. I was a little bored. But then... everything started falling into place. You could feel the entire audience, our packed theater, put everything together at once and we were all on board. Where there were scattered chuckles early on, there were full on harmonious laughs after. Once we finally understood the route of the film, it was smooth sailing from there.
Meryl Streep is once again, astonishing. And I really like what writers Liz Hannah and Josh Singer did with her character. In a year of strong female characters, we don't want to see Streep take a back seat and play someone with less ladyballs. She starts out meek. She starts out in a newspaper business... left to her by her late husband... a business that's nearly entirely "a man's world" and she's meek. She can't speak up at board meetings. When three or four men are talking at her, she barely musters a sound. But when she finds the strength to stand up for her own paper, she starts to find the strength to stand up for herself and there really is a true evolution to her character that Streep seriously owns. This may not be the year for Streep to win the gold, but I'll be shocked if she's not nominated yet again. The film is full of fine performances. Hanks is great as per usual (though it is kinda jarring watching Hanks as a dick and not a fatherly figure you want to hug). Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Jesse Plemmons, Sarah Paulson (severely underused but still great), Alison Brie, and hell, even Gabe from The Office (Zach Woods) shows up for a brief moment.
The Post is a nice companion piece to Spotlight. They both deal with the suspense of investigative journalism, but I'm here to tell you, dear folks, that Spotlight did it a little better. And that might be one of the reasons I thought The Post was just good. It's the second movie in this line of moviemaking. Had it been the first, who knows? But Spotlight wasn't just good, it was great. Like I said, it starts off a little bit too slowly to hook the audience in right away. And I felt like a lot of the dialogue was pretty on the nose. There were moments where a concept was thrown around in a conversation of experts, and I as an audience member would have to piece together the conversation-puzzle to determine what exactly they're saying. Then, when I'd finally get it, they'd stop and spell it out for the audience to understand. It happens several times and it was cringe-worthy every time. Though I may be the only one to have felt this way as I overheard a hoity-toity, old-man, LA-hipster walk out of the Burbank theater behind me exclaiming to his just-as-shitty female companion, "what a wonderful screenplay! Marvelous!" (Seriously, these are his exact words.)
But The Post is an important movie. And hopefully people will actually learn something. Most of the time we use the press for good (some for evil), but it is a necessary evil. I personally didn't feel like the movie had a political slant or bias - even though it is not-so-subtly making connections from the events in the 70s to our current presidential administration, but perhaps I'm also blinded by that too. The film has a very respectable 87% on Rotten Tomatoes. When a film scores this high, I like to go through and read some of the rotten reviews. I'm going to end this with an direct excerpt from my favorite negative review. It's from a SUPER right-wing newspaper from Toluca Lake called the Tolucan Times. The reviewer is Tony Medley. And he had this
B
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