She said she will debut in theaters on November 18, 2022.
She Said traces the origins of one of the stories that define modern media. New York Times report Here are the details of the allegations against Harvey Weinstein. This is the first global (and ongoing) domino toppling, considering the abuse of power. It’s also a deleted and sometimes bizarre retelling of this story, a kind of half-baked journalism film that feels like a per-proxy narrative that seems to have been decided at some point in the filmmaking process. Detailing the facts and chronology should suffice. Again, perhaps that assumption gives too much control and projects too much intent onto the creators. It looks like it, but it doesn’t have the skill or the insight to convey that vitality.
Written by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, She Said follows real-time journalists Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) as they attempt to expose the story of Weinstein’s sexual assault during his mission at Miramax. but the film works best when Twohey is neither. Cantor is also not its central focus. The movie opens with a short prologue set in the early 90’s. After a young, starry-eyed production assistant happily kicks off his career on the set of a Weinstein-era film, director Maria Schrader cuts into the industry’s later scene. She ran hopefully through her streets, her tears running down her cheeks, leaving her dreams behind. It’s a surprisingly effective portrait that creates a narrative mystery, the answer to which is widely known, but the details of which have yet to be discovered. It’s also the last time we’ll feature something similar.
The year is 2016 and allegations against Donald Trump are surfacing. Fast forward a little further, and these allegations could not prevent him from being elected President of the United States. Fast forward even further to early 2017 and his Times report against Fox News host Bill O’Reilly will see him off the air. Fast forward again and the story finally begins with an uneasy foundation laid. Kantor, a pregnant Toohy and a working mother, live in a world where this kind of reckoning is on people’s tongues, but the film, in a real emotional sense, tells the personal story of two women. These things happened. Donald Trump was elected despite being exposed and it was seen as an institutional failure, but that failure is more presumed than tied to Twohey or Kantor and their way of seeing the world .
What unfolds from that point is less of a dramatic narrative than a mere retelling of events, often at a distance. Clues that fall (or are unearthed) are presented in a largely homogenous manner, with scenes that mechanically begin and end. Emotional information long enough for them to be important (the film is almost afraid to commit to an emotional moment and is cut off from the close-ups in moments of dramatic climax ). While some sources are less aggressive than others, often for fear of reprisal, the increasing paranoia surrounding the story does not permeate the aesthetic structure she said. talks about feeling chased, threatened, and feeling like a wall is closing in, but these are just words.of all the president’s men This is not it. Perhaps the intent is for audiences to believe or disbelieve, without the need for convincing artistry.In theory at least, it certainly fits the story.
Mulligan’s two-hee concept has always been a saving grace, keeping She Said from stumbling (more than that). She emerges as a lost soul seeking forgiveness from both her postpartum depression and the aforementioned lingering structural failures to which women have become constant victims and who have been continually silenced. increase. She projects a constant sense of working in extremely difficult circumstances, even in Weinstein’s amazing attorney (Peter Friedman) and witty scenes, but Mulligan himself leads to the larger story. Beyond the tense feelings for her, she doesn’t really care.Twohey’s motherhood struggles relate to that story of femininity.
Twohey occasionally exchanges notes with Kantor about motherhood. Kantor, at one point, has the difficult task of explaining to her daughter the nature of the story she’s investigating, but these are just background details, without letting us know the rest of the story. floating in the ether. She has a rare moment when She Said weaves symbols of femininity into women’s stories. In particular, the stories of victims like Laura Madden (Jennifer Ehre) and Zelda Perkins (Samantha Morton) are approached and persuaded by the duo to speak up.
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Even stranger, she has an inconsistent and borderline farcical relationship with celebrities. Since most of the journalists in the story generally remain anonymous, and most of the victims who worked behind the scenes at Miramax are also not immediately recognizable, a variety of talented actors play all of them. The distracting de-aged Ashley Judd appears as herself, and every other household name (presumably someone who didn’t agree to appear) is out of frame and ridiculous. Early on, Trump appears as a disembodied voice on the phone, played by comedian and impressionist James Austin Johnson, leaving us wondering just how seriously the film will be taken. Gwyneth Paltrow weaves into the story consistently, but all of her scenes cut her voice and her physical presence. The actors voicing Weinstein and actress Rose McGowan do so admirably — at key moments, Weinstein’s brief, semi-covered appearance is sure to provoke laughter. Ignore the facts — but this constant need to allude to prominent characters without fully portraying them deprives key scenes of dramatic weight. This is especially true when Cantor is talking to them. Because Kazan (an otherwise talented actress) is largely plagued by jarring clichés and broad caricatures of noble heroes.
Meanwhile, the scenes that focus on Madden and Perkins’ testimony are irresistible, thanks to Ehle and Morton’s captivating performances as women who have long buried their trauma, but their collective screen Time becomes a pocket change. The moment the screen switches to a non-dynamic duo, it resumes a sense of lethargy and forgotten conclusions. The only time She Said is as captivating or dramatically accurate as the opening her scene smash her cut is in a chilling shot of an anonymous hotel hallway, Weinstein’s undesired sexual It’s a short moment to replay the actual recording of your progress. These crime scenes — but the fact that few moments featuring human faces have ever been measured is an indictment in itself.
Worst of all, when the time finally comes to “publish,” the world-changing effects of Twohey and Kantor’s work are left to the imagination. For people to finally have a chance to speak up. In contrast, a much simpler film like The Assistant would similarly unfold near Weinstein, without portraying or naming him, but in a world created by men. focuses with a laser on the emotional and psychological impact of living for men. Any character is needed to improvise. Its “importance” is self-evident (not to mention, we feel it deeply), but that of She Said is presumed and projected.