The biggest comparison is to the Oscar-winning Spotlight (2015) because that film was about journalists exposing a sex scandal. There are of course other comparisons to other films about journalists, including The Post (2017), Good Night, And Good Luck (2005), The Insider (1999) and All the President's Men (1976). All of them provide insight into the news process that makes you believe and in fact celebrate journalism, its power and righteousness.
A lot of these films about journalism has reporters tackling a huge political issue, or a powerful political figure. This film starts off thinking it's going to be about President Donald Trump, but that is quickly passed over. Instead, this film focuses on the crimes of Harvey Weinstein. Other than Bill Cosby and now Jeffrey Epstein, Weinstein is arguably the most famous and most wealthy, sexual predator or abuser of women that has ever been in the United States.
Carey Mulligan was recently nominated for an Academy Award for Promising Young Woman (2021), which is about a woman going after a sexual predator but using way more aggressive tactics. Here, she plays Megan Twohey, a reporter of The New York Times who broke a story about President Trump and who then received death threats for it. Compounded is her post-partum depression, but she's a more seasoned and tougher presence.
Zoe Kazan (The Big Sick and Olive Kitteridge) co-stars as Jodi Kantor, a less seasoned and less experienced reporter but a dedicated one. She's the writer who brings the Weinstein case to the newspaper. She's a little wide-eyed but she's the one who has to hear the testimonies of Weinstein's many victims. Mainly, it's her sitting and listening, as she doesn't come across as intimidating.
The film doesn't play up the investigative aspects. Unlike Spotlight, it's not about seeing the reporters as detectives. It's not really about building a case or proving something. This is perhaps reflective of how the crime is adjudicated where it's really about waiting for certain people to go on the record.
In that regard, the film might not feel that exciting because it does become more of a waiting game. Unlike Bombshell (2019), another film about a sexual predator, the alleged sexual predator here isn't really portrayed on-screen. In Bombshell, the sexual predator was Roger Ailes and was portrayed by John Lithgow who is given a definitive on-screen, physical presence. Here, the actor playing Weinstein isn't, so this film has no real villain or foil.
Director Maria Schrader makes this film more about the women at the center of this story. Minimizing Weinstein's presence as much as possible is a good position to take. He does have some presence because getting a comment from him was part of the news process, but that's really it. Having more Weinstein wouldn't have made the film better. Again, the news process here isn't one that's about watching reporters dig or sweat too much. There's a listlessness to to the film in that way.
Rated R for language and descriptions of sexual assault.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 9 mins.
Available on Peacock.
