Movie Reaction: The Post

Formula: The Paper / All the President's Men

Steven Spielberg is many things. Subtle is not one of them. E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial is brazenly emotionally manipulative. Schindler'sList is one of the more obvious Oscar bait movies to ever be released. Jurassic Park is overt spectacle. Lincoln is transparently theatrical. Spielberg is a master because he lets the audience know exactly what he wants to do then delivers, like a magician who tells you the trick before doing it. I rarely feel cheated when something like War Horse leaves me a blubbering mess or Saving Private Ryan has me waxing nostalgic about "the greatest generation", because he doesn't hide the fact that he doing that. There's a reason why he's arguably the most copied director still working. He earns whatever he's doing with deceptive simplicity. In sports, it's the same as the difference between a running complex play and running a well-executed play. So, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise when I say that The Post is made with the least subtle hand imaginable.

Before I get into that, I should say what The Post is about. In the 1960's the U.S. government did a study on the Vietnam War that essentially determined it was a no-win situation. They didn't release this information to the American people. Eventually, someone copied that top secret report and sent the study to newspapers including The New York Times and Washington Post. When the papers began releasing information from what became known as the Pentagon Papers, the government threatened legal action against the papers which began a national security vs. First Amendment debate. The Post is the story of how the Washington Post got the papers and their decision to publish. The more specific story of The Post is that all this is going on as the reluctant owner of the paper, Kay Graham (Meryl Streep), is bringing the company public. Her executive editor, Ben Bradless (Tom Hanks), is desperately tracking down a copy of the papers after the New York Times first breaks the story. Once he gets the Pentagon Papers, Graham has to decide whether her responsibility is to keeping the American people informed and maintaining freedom of the press or to keeping her company afloat and maintaining friendships that would be hurt by releasing this information.

Everything about this movie is a political stand, from the debate of freedom of the press to the discussion of female empowerment. You can draw whatever parallels you want to today's politics, but I'd rather not. Freedom of the press is good. This is a movie about that being challenged. I was rooting for the press to win. Female empowerment is good. This is a movie about a woman, Kay Graham, in a man's world taking a stand. I was rooting for Graham to find her voice. In the film, none of this is handled with a soft touch, so I could see that bothering some people as a style choice. But, if you are worried that you'll disagree with the movie on some philosophical level, I think that will come down to how you want to read into things more than what the movie actually says.

There are a number of natural comparisons to The Post. Two in particular. All the President's Men is an irresistible comparison. Other than the fact that both films are both about The Washington Post and Nixon, they aren't all that similar. The Post has some "too cute by half" nods to Watergate that I could've done without, but they otherwise aren't that comparable. Spotlight is a very complementary film to The Post. In terms of the newspaper business, Spotlight is about the reporting and The Post is about the publishing. Both are excellent examples of what I call "people doing their damn job" movies. I love movies about process. The Post has all the phases in it. Reporters working sources. Researchers putting together information. Editors rapidly correcting a story. Lawyers figuring out the legality of a story. Those guys who physically insert the words into the press for printing. Any movie with a green button that someone has to press by midnight to make it in time for the early edition is one that has my approval. I like seeing how things get done and The Post is a thorough example of that.

This cast is stupid good. It's not an all-star cast of A-listers. The better comparison would be a sports team having the best starting lineup in the league and the best bench players in the league. Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks are incapable of being bad. This isn't career-best work from either of them, but that's an unfairly high bar. The supporting cast is a Murderers' Row of "TV All Stars": Sarah Paulson, Carrie Coon, Bob Odenkirk, David Cross, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Jesse Plemons, Zach Woods, Michael Stuhlberg. If at least three of those names aren't enough to make you giddy then I don't know what to say about your taste in television programming. With such a large cast, it's hard for anyone to stand out. Paulson gets a good, thematically on-the-nose speech. Odenkirk has some good moments. Plemons and Woods are fun as the exasperated lawyers. Mostly, it's a movie full of B+ work from exceptional talents. It's hard to be mad at that.

I'm not very studied in the mechanics of filmmaking despite how much I've seen. Normally with the more technical elements, if they are done well, I don't notice them. Well, I couldn't help but notice Spielberg's direction and Janusz Kaminski's photography. This movie couldn't sit still and loved attention-grabbing shots. There are a lot of slow zoom-ins while someone  is talking and shots of multiple people with one person in focus and another out of focus. It's like Spielberg was aping a 70's conspiracy thriller in a fun way without diminishing the seriousness of the movie. It was odd. I think it works though.

The Post is a little too blunt for my taste. It's pushes the "journalists as heroes" angle a little too strongly. I wish it would've trusted the audience to pick up on things a little more than it did. That said, it's hard to dislike a movie with a cast this good and a master like Spielberg fully-engaged.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend