Free Press Serves the Governed

THE POST (2017)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When President Trump lambastes the so-called liberal media for getting all their facts wrong or sometimes refers to them as "fake news," which is far more disingenuous, then it becomes quite refreshing to see a movie that recalls the pre-Trump days when newspapers had a voice and assumed responsibility for getting their political stories out there, no matter how incendiary. In the case of the publishing of the incendiary Pentagon Papers that the Washington Post published back in 1971, everything was riding on this paper's legitimacy and reputation. This was before the attack on Nixon's involvement in Watergate. Steven Spielberg's "The Post" is a finely crafted, intricately layered and suspenseful drama, showcasing the details of journalistic duty and ethics, you know things that don't seem to matter much to the governors anymore in 2018, except to those who are governed.

Early on in "The Post," military analyst and Pentagon whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys) is seen whisking away the Pentagon Papers, three or four folders at a a time, making Xerox copies. Right from the start, Ellsberg is miffed at Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's outright lying to the press about the ongoing Vietnam War. An unseen Neil Sheehan, top reporter for the New York Times, decides to publish excerpts of the classified Pentagon Papers, covering more than thirty years of the Vietnam War. Naturally, the White House gets wind of this and tells the Times not to publish. Enter Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks, absolutely terrific), editor-in-chief for the Washington Post, who is hoping to cover more than just the wedding of President Nixon's daughter. Bradlee consults assistant editor and reporter Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk) who gets access to these papers but it comes at a cost. The Post is losing popularity with women readers, its stock value is at stake, and its publisher/owner Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep, also outstanding) is trying to make amends. At first, Ben Bradlee and the male-centric advisers and lawyers do not pay her much mind since she got control of the paper after her husband died. She is an executive, so what can she know or do when the reporters are smoking a chimney while typing furiously in the press offices? One scene, out of many, highlights how Katharine is treated - she has breakfast with Ben and she tells him that it might be good to focus and write on women's issues. Ben tells her, "Katharine, keep your finger out of my eye!" It is a hell of a scene, dramatic in its own finite way of showing how women were pushed around and criticized for being critical, which is of course her job.

Though the historians have come out and attacked with their sharpened knives, decrying the film for focusing on the Washington Post as opposed to The New York Times who first broke the story and had their own sources, "The Post" doesn't exactly shy away from those facts and, naturally, the dramatic focus is on the parallels of power in the newspaper business between Bradlee and Graham. In an age of the #MeToo movement and how far women have progressed, it is of note to mention that Katharine was the first female publisher of a major newspaper. Her ability to contend with the males around her and then make her final decision to publish despite opposition from the board members is astonishing to witness. It is a penultimate moment that ranks among the finest moments of Meryl Streep's career, an actress I have less than admired and have criticized for being robotic in manufactured emotions. Aside from "Silkwood" and her few comedic forays, Streep had always struck me as cold and detached. Watching her work now since 2004's "The Manchurian Candidate," she has emerged more full-blooded than ever before.

Tom Hanks brings a tacit amount of joviality and a sneering sense of self as Ben Bradlee, realizing late in the game that it isn't so much his neck on the line, it is Katharine's who has much to lose. Bob Odenkirk dazzles as Ben Bagdikian, realizing his own mistake at not revealing the Times' source to the lawyers prior to the publication of the story. Bruce Greenwood astutely shows the different sides to McNamara, seeing how his close friend Katharine has a hell of a dilemma at her feet despite knowing his reputation may suffer.

"The Post" is prescient filmmaking at its best, diving into another era when the newspapers had to cling to the truth at any price. It is a fitting companion piece to "All the President's Men" (which this film alludes to beautifully at the end and of course features Bradlee), a thrilling and tightly wound narrative with the incendiary tone of journalism at its brink...and when it threatens to explode.