She Said

MORE SPOILER-FREE MINI-REVIEWS @ https://www.msbreviews.com/movie-reviews/other-films-watched-lff-2022 "She Said proves that even a formulaic, overlong movie can still be incredibly compelling and emotionally impactful. The haunting true story of Harvey Weinstein's accounts of sexual abuse is approached with heartfelt care, dedication, and respect for the victims. Everything is elevated by absolutely brilliant performances from the cast, most notably Zoe Kazan. Even without significant innovations, Maria Schrader keeps the narrative interesting with the help of Nicholas Britell's score. It deserves to be seen by everyone." Rating: B-

Try as I did, I just couldn't really engage with this rather long, procedural and sterile depiction of two journalist's traumatic and courageous efforts that finally ended Harvey Weinstein's unfettered abuse of many of the women who worked for and with him over the lengthy span of his Hollywood dominance. Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan are competent, but no more, as these lead reporters facing the seemingly impossible task of navigating a toxic environment of fear, shame and non-disclosure agreements in the hope that one of his victims will go on the record. When you know what ultimately happens with a true-life scenario, it makes the telling of the story that much harder because there is no sense of jeopardy. The thing with this for me, though, was that the writing and characterisations were all just too flat. It also frequently blurs the distinctions between fact (or "information" as it is often referred to here) with unsubstantiated gossip. Now, clearly the aim of these two ladies was to substantiate those rumours, but the film doesn't really get to grips properly with that. One witness has been untraceable for many years (yet she is readily found by them living with her mother!); the others have remained tight lipped due to the NDAs but suddenly start to spill the beans. Why? What made them decide to finally bring this brute to book? The cold-calling nature of their approaches often appears cruel and ill-considered of the consequences (especially the scene with Andrew Cheung (Edward Astor Chin) obliviously mowing his lawn). None of the detail or personalities are really gone into here - the whole style is superficial and the lack of dramatisation of any of the incidents, or - indeed - of Weinstein himself, leaves us with a slightly disjointed, hollow, movie. It looks at the abhorrences of intimidation and oppression in the workplace then makes generic inferences that - and this applies to men, gay people, people of colour and not just women - rather underwhelmed me at the end. As a chronology of an investigative report it is fine. As a drama about real people facing real horrors it just lacks for depth and character.

I tend to like movies with less action and more introspection and more “talkative.” Still, since I had read the book on this and saw other reports, I wondered if this might all seem like old news when I watched it. But I found out to be enthralling. I engaged with the lead characters and appreciated the excellent work of the secondary characters. For example, a quiet but strong portrayal of the partner of one of the reporters who seemed to be a reporter in his own right but who was supportive of her efforts. I felt they didn’t go for the melodramatic approach here as they well might have. They merely hinted about moments like one of them wondering if a car occupant was watching her, and used just one threatening phone call when they probably actually had many of them. It kept the story cleaner and moving forward. She Said reminded me of All the Presidents Men, with the two investigative reporters being held to a standard of having sufficient sources to back up their reporting but where Woodward and Bernstein seemed mostly concerned with holding people accountable for their illegal actions, the journalists in she Said connected and formed a personal bond with the victims they located and encouraged to speak out.