Hot on the trail: (From left) Actors playing Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey, Dean Baquet and Rebecca Corbett work on their investigation in ‘She Said’. Photo: JoJo Whilden/Universal Pictures
She Said is an important film precisely because of its uncomfortable content, which exposes the bullying and criminality of convicted sexual predator, the one-time seemingly omnipotent Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. It also serves as a warning to men who are inclined towards criminal sexual behaviour.
It does a good job of showing the arduous trek that investigative journalists and their sources have to endure to tell a story that cries out for telling, a story that can lead to policy change and social movements of importance, such as #MeToo.
A biographical drama, She Said contains none of the characteristic Hollywood obsessions — no car chases, no gratuitous sex scenes and no ripped aortas spurting blood. Instead, good, solid acting by Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan in their depiction of The New York Times journalists Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor and their quest to expose Weinstein takes centre stage.
The film, based on the duo’s bestseller of the same name, emphasises the time good investigative reporting takes — in this case depicted without words by Twohey’s pregnancy, baby’s birth, battle with postpartum depression and the first part of her child’s life, when the investigation is published.
Director Maria Schrader adeptly documents the emotional conflict suffered by the duo’s reluctant and often terrified sources, some of whom have family who have no idea of the trauma their wife/mother/sister/ daughter suffered at the hands of Weinstein and the extraordinary efforts by his company to cover up his behaviour.
On a superficial level, the ubiquitous backpacks and sensible shoes worn by Mulligan and Kazan throughout, even when meeting A-lister Gwyneth Paltrow, will elicit knowing nods from journalists, while the measured and intelligent comment from Weinstein’s victims will be relatable to any woman who has endured sexual harassment or assault at the hands of a powerful assailant.
Importantly, Schrader and screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz succeed in portraying Weinstein’s victims as not only some of Hollywood’s elite actresses, but those at the start of their careers in non-acting roles, such as assistants, and how Weinstein’s sexual aggression derailed their career paths and altered their personal trajectories.
The film makes clear the victims are not nasty, screeching feminists out to ruin a nice, rich family man for their own agenda, which was the propaganda sprouted by Weinstein, his PR team and his supporters. It also makes clear excellent investigative reporting requires strong emotional, intellectual and financial support from editors determined to protect their journalists so an important story can reach readers. — Des Erasmus
He played the press, the police and everyone in between. For decades, he fed off a system enamoured with glitz and glamour. The system allowed him to violate and degrade women. No, She Said is not a movie about Donald Trump, it is about Harvey Weinstein’s sordid massages, erectile dysfunction and degradation of women.
It is about taking down a system that allows the violation of those who have no voice, that rewards the perpetrators and blackballs the victims. Whether you are a man or a woman, you know how these systems operate quietly and insidiously — and no one will talk about it. This is a story about what happens in the search by two women journalists at The New York Times to unravel this truth.
One way I can explain this movie is to ask you to imagine sitting in a rocking chair as the sun dips behind the clouds; there isn’t much to do and nothing but the chilly breeze stirs the trees. You notice a bright red thread on your left arm. You grab the thread and tug. No movement. Now it’s irritating. You tug again. And bit by bit, it unravels until the whole jersey is a pile of wool on the floor. That is how lost you will get in this movie. The journalists who track down women violated by Weinstein begin the tugging and, at first, there is no movement, but the story is so powerfully woven you become the characters.
Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) is a multi-award-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times and a best-selling author focused on the treatment of women and children. Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and an author. In 2019, the two published their top-selling book She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement, on which the movie is based.
The importance of the movie is not only in the writing but also in the energy between the journalists and the emotions that drive them to find the truth although men get away with such heinous crimes all the time. It gives life to the women who spoke out and those who were frightened into not talking.
You can see how a mother has never told a soul, including her husband, about the day Weinstein raped her and the settlement that followed. You can see shame deeply etched into the face of one of the men involved in these settlements. The shock on his wife’s face, his resignation to the evil he ensured sucked the life out of young, bright, talented women. This movie takes you on a journey of imagining the exhilaration and tears of journalists cracking the story that led to the “Time’s Up” movement.
Despite the searing truth of the exposé, and the depth of Hollywood’s depravity it portrays, the movie failed at the box office. It’s an irony, considering it started a movement. — Athandiwe Saba