Attribution: Fernando de Sousa from Melbourne, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Sum of Its Parts: Film Review of She Said
By Geoff Carter
One of the most compelling and shocking news stories of 2017 was the downfall of Harvey Weinstein. This man–to use the term loosely–who was the head of Miramax Studios, and later the Weinstein Company, and arguably one of the most influential producers in Hollywood, was charged, tried, and convicted multiple times for sexual assault and rape. He is now in jail, presumably for the rest of his life. The original accusations eventually resulted in the popularization of the MeToo Movement, the social campaign against sexual harassment and abuse.
As one of the most successful producers in Hollywood—during a career which included award-winning films like Shakespeare in Love, Django Unchained, Pulp Fiction, and Good Will Hunting—Weinstein’s chronic criminal behavior was deliberately covered up and disavorwed by his production companies and ignored by the movie picture industry as a whole. Apparently, everyone knew about it. Payoffs were made, non-disclosure agreements were signed, and scores of young women were intimidated and bullied. Dozens of careers were ruined.
The story of how these crimes were uncovered and Weinstein was brought to justice was documented in the movie She Said, based on the book by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the two New York Times reporters who broke the story after months of painstaking research.
As the film opens in 2017, Kantor is attempting to follow up on a tip that actress Rose McGowan had been sexually assaulted by Weinstein. At first, McGowan refuses to comment but later tells Kantor she was raped by Weinstein and that she was not the only one. Following up on this information, Kantor interviews Ashley Judd and Gwyneth Paltrow, both of whom describe unwanted sexual advances by the producer but decline to comment out of fear of retribution.
At this point, Jodi Kantor asks veteran reporter Megan Twohey, who had recently filed a report on Donald Trump’s alleged sexual abuses, to help her with the story. Together they interview former assistants of Weinstein. One refuses to comment, citing the fact she signed a non-disclosure agreement. Kantor tries to interview a former Miramax CFO about these payouts, but he refuses to comment. As they continue trying to uncover the story, they are consistently stonewalled by the EEOC and the district attorney’s office, which—not surprisingly—had social ties to Weinstein.
The two finally get a break when they interview three of Weinstein’s former assistants. After refusing to speak with them initially, one of them, after being called by a Weinstein lawyer, finally agrees to go on the record. The Weinstein camp, having learned of the investigation, reacts by sending a lawyer to The Times to mitigate the damage. Kantor gets a tip that she should speak with a former Miramax accountant who does not like Weinstein. He provides an internal company memo detailing payoffs.
At this point, the Times notifies the Weinstein Company about the investigation and asks for a statement. They stonewall and deny the charges, demanding the names of their sources. Twohey and Kantor decline of course but cannot persuade any of the victims to come forward until Judd and one of the former assistants finally agree to do so.
The article was published on October 5, 2017. A few days later, Weinstein resigned from his production company. He was arrested and charged with sexual assault and rape, convicted, and is currently serving a twenty-three-year sentence in New York. A later trial in Los Angeles resulted in another sixteen-year-sentence.
The investigative journalism film genre is a natural for the big screen. It involves elements of the classic detective story, the underdog narrative, and valorizes the courage and integrity of the journalists willing to go to the mat to uncover crime and injustice. Films like All the President’s Men, Spotlight, Good Night and Good Luck, The Post, and Zodiac contain varying amounts of all these elements but what distinguishes She Said is how the screenplay focuses not on the crimes or the criminal, but on the victims, in particular how their lives and careers and psyches have been damaged by this monster. During the course of the film, Harvey Weinstein is never shown. The viewer only sees the back of his head. While his crimes are listed, they are never shown or described in detail. It is the effect on their victims that is the focus.
The initial sequence shows a young girl stumbling on a movie set. She is recruited to work on the movie but then—in a shocking cut—she is shown running down the street sobbing. The viewer can only imagine what has happened to her. The film is not about Harvey Weinstein, the monster. It is about the women who banded together to crack into his protective layers of power and money, to stand up to his bullying and legal armor and attain justice and for themselves.
It is, in a sense, this film is also the story of the inception the MeToo movement. After the courageous stands of Ashley Judd and others, over eighty-two women stepped forward to describe their own experiences at the hands of Weinstein. Revelations of Weinstein’s crimes helped increase social awareness and activism through the Me Too movement, a term originally coined by Tarana Burke. According to the BBC, after actress Alyssa Milano tweeted the phrase MeToo on October 15th, 2017, it had been retweeted over two hundred thousand times by the end of the day. In its depiction of the investigation and subsequent conviction of Harvey Weinstein, while She Said centers on the individual investigative efforts of Kantor and Twohey, it is also a narrative about solidarity and unity.
Maria Schrader’s direction is economical and curt. The film tells the story concisely and coherently. The cramped interior shots—and even the constricted exteriors—give the film a claustrophobic feel, reflecting the general zeitgeist of the women in the film. Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s screenplay, adapted from the book by Ms. Twohey and Ms. Kantor, is compelling and well-paced. Any adaptation of a true story, particularly one in which the audience has experienced, will inevitably be compared to that experience. Lenkiewicz skillfully weaves the facts into a tapestry that highlights the women—not as victims, but as crusaders and survivors.
The acting in She Said is nothing short of excellent. Zoe Kazan’s depiction of Jodi Kantor captures not only the energy and determination of the reporter, but also her anguish and anger when having to explain what she is doing, the monster she is uncovering, to her daughter. Kazan conveys a natural air of intelligence and determination, tempered here by an air of innocence. Carey Mulligan’s depiction of Megan Twohey, a woman who at the beginning of the film is the subject of threats for a previous story, is that of a woman recovering her own self-esteem and confidence through her work uncovering Weinstein. It is a reflection of not only Weinstein’s victims, but of the Me Too movement itself.
She Said is not only a history of the Weinstein investigation, but a testament to the solidarity and unity needed to reveal and remedy the rampant sexism and sexual harrassment in the workplace. It is a story of courageous women fighting for equality, fair treatment, and dignity. It is also a template for action.