So What?
Another year. Another “strong” performance by Meryl Streep. Another unimpeachable movie by Steven Spielberg with a score by John Williams that sounds like a call to arms for those of us who long for the glory of the old republic. Another scene in Vietnam backed by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
People who enter the theater prepared to be inspired by The Post will leave inspired. But you have to want it. Otherwise, you’ll wind up with the rest of us rolling your eyes as one character waxes serious “we’re going to publish,” to which his wife swoons “wow!”
The Trump era surely must have seemed like a perfect time for The Post, which tells the story of how The Washington Post, in defiance of the White House, reported on the Pentagon Papers, thus helping expose not only the government’s failure in Vietnam, but also its efforts to conceal said failure from the public.
Yes, it was probably worth retelling this story. But Spielberg, Williams, and Hanks were most assuredly not the right men for the job. Meryl Streep might not have been the right woman either.
Spielberg and Williams are magicians. They lull us into worlds from which we never want to awaken – a gilded past, an exciting future, a present in which hope springs eternal.
But their world is not Washington Post editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee’s world. It’s not Washington of the 1970s. The reference and awe they heap over The Post just doesn’t feel entirely appropriate among brown suits, balding newspapermen, and the DC elite.
Ben Bradlee was, for certain, a lion of the newsroom; but he also had the complexion of a chain smoker, the lean physique of a back-alley brawler, and could probably be a real sonofabitch sometimes. In other words, he’s not Tom Hanks. And it doesn’t matter how many cigarettes they shove between Hanks’ fingers, you can just tell the guy’s not inhaling.
Meanwhile Streep as Post owner Kay Graham, gives what must be a masterful performance. At least we guess that’s what it is. Truth be told, we’ve seen this particular “meek woman inherits the Earth routine” so many times now, it’s hard to tell.
Only cinematographer Janusz Kaminski seems to be trying for something new. He swings his camera about the set pieces – neo-colonial houses and drab newspaper rooms – with gusto. But the freewheeling camera only serves to further highlight just how affected and self-congratulatory the rest of the movie is – from the token minority cameos, to the scene where a victorious Kay leaves the courthouse amid a sea of cheering protestors who are, curiously, all women.
Leaving the theater, we wondered whether stories about the Nixon administration carry the same weight that they did in decades past. We were lied to about Iraq. The inside story on how the Affordable Care Act became law is no picnic. And our current President lies to us on a daily basis. We can imagine a child in generation Z hearing about Watergate or Vietnam and asking, “yeah, so?”
...seen at The Senator theater