The Post is the fastest-made film of director's Steven Spielberg's career. By his own account he first read the script in early 2017. It struck him as so relevant, despite its 1970s setting, that he suspended work on another project and made the thing in nine months flat. The urgency has transferred to the screen, but not the rush. With Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks on board, this is A-listers bringing their A-game; the result is as gripping as it is timely.
The Washington Post of the movie's title is a poor competitor in 1971 to the mighty New York Times. That could all change when military analyst Daniel Ellsberg starts leaking Vietnam War-related documents to the Times. The government, it transpires, has been less than truthful regarding the progress of American troops, and the whole thing points to a decades-long foreign policy cover-up. Nor is the Richard Nixon's administration going to abandon its secrets easily, slapping an injunction on the Times to shut it up. Soon Post editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks) is chasing the so-called Pentagon Papers, while the newspaper's owner Kay Graham (Streep) frets over the legalities of releasing their details. War with the White House could damage the Post irrevocably...
Spielberg's film works and succeeds on a number of levels. It's a rattling good journalistic tale, once the plot truly kicks in, of a paper working against a crucial deadline. It's also a strikingly contemporary story of news media taking on a mendacious US government, who would brush aside the constitution if it could to protect itself. And in Meryl Streep it's the tale of a woman struggling to find her voice in a male environment that views her as irrelevant. Small wonder the director scrambled for a release date almost exactly one year on from the Trump inauguration. This is a movie on a mission.
Not that it comes off too preachy. (One or two of the directorial touches are a little obvious and John Williams' score wells a little too loud to underscore one meaningful moment.) After a necessarily slow-burn set-up, this is a pacy and involving story full of news-hounds rattling small change at pay phones and printers setting type at cumbersome old-style presses. It's realised so well you can almost smell the ink. The hustle of the news office is a vivid contrast to the cocktail parties where politicians curry favour with the publishers. This is a journo-thriller, with bundles of papers hitting driveways as the payoff.
The performances are quality like you'd expect, Spielberg maximising their potential with his trademark lingering close-ups. Hanks is every inch the seasoned editor and Better Call Saul's Bob Odenkirk is great as dogged hack Ben Bagdikian. But Streep steals it, not least because her character has the greatest distance to go. As Kay Graham she is the society hostess who never expected to inherit a family newspaper business, and who must now learn to run it on her own terms. Whereas I'd expected the steely newspaper boss from her opening scene, I got the slow transformation into that role. It's compelling to watch, one '70s-style conference call providing a beautifully-played highlight. For an 'overrated' actress Meryl's really rather good.
This pre-Watergate story holds importance all its own. The Post
is a movie for the moment, celebrating hard-nosed fact-checked journalism and its role in challenging political corruption. It may lay on its messages a little too thick at times, but that's a small price for a fine piece of storytelling, one that espouses freedom of speech as a core American virtue. No wonder Steve wanted to get it out fast.
Gut Reaction: Relish as the stakes rose and the drama gained momentum. And a few fist-clenches at the characters' fighting spirit.
Where Are the Women? Meryl gives the stand-out performance, but kudos too to writer Liz Hannah, whose original screenplay grabbed Spielberg's attention.
Ed's Verdict: 8/10. Comes damn close to All the President's Men. I can pay it no higher compliment than that.
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