Little Women (2019)

Lady Bard
or
"Who Wrote 'Little Women'?"*

It's the umpteenth remake of "Little Women" (Let's catalogue and differentiate them by "Jo's"- there's the 1917 and 1918 silent versions, 1933—the Katherine Hepburn version directed by George Cukor, 1949—June Allyson's directed by Mervyn LeRoy, CBS-TV musical version in 1958, 1970 BBC version, 1978 TV version, 1994—Winona Ryder's directed by Gillian Armstrong (a woman, fancy that!), PBS Masterpiece did one in 2017, 2018—a "modern re-telling", and that's not even counting the handful of TV series and an opera based on Louisa May Allcott's 1868-1869 classic novel about the March sisters, growing up and surviving love, war, societal pressures, class disparities—not to mention inherent entrenched sexism—during the U.S. Civil War and its aftermath. Pa March is a pastor by profession and away during the war and the March women have to fend for themselves in times of privation in a small rural town in Massachusetts...with no man in the house.

Despite that last part, the book became a classic, much to the surprise of Alcott and her publisher, who only went forward with its publication when his niece found and read the uncompleted manuscript and asked him "What happens to the little women?"

What doesn't? The daughters of Marmee March (Laura Dern in Greta Gerwig's new 2019 version) are as different as could be: oldest Meg (Emma Watson) is a beauty and is the most responsible of the girls, graceful and who should be an actress if she had such frivolities in mind; next is "Jo"—Josephine (Saoirse Ronan), the drama queen and tomboyish, who wants more to be a writer than a wife, writes plays for her sisters and holds aspirations outside the home—she is closest to the author in spirit; next is Beth (Eliza Scanlen), shy, domestically skilled and musical—she plays the piano—she is the most tranquil of the March girls, serves as the voice of reason in their squabbles and has no aspirations for a future career or husband and lives in the moment; the youngest is Amy (Florence Pugh), mercurial, vain and selfish and in a perpetual up-hill battle to make herself noticed apart from her sisters. She has a constant sense of being handed down and, to escape the shadow of her sisters, aspires to painting and achieves a new found maturity when she is taken by her Aunt (Meryl Streep) as a companion on a trip to Europe.

The film is familiar in incident if you've seen any film version or read the book. The Marsh's are taught to be empathetic to their neighbors and are rewarded by the attention of neighbor Mr. Laurence (Chris Cooper, never sentimentalizing) and his charming "black-sheep" grandson Theodore—who prefers the less formal "Laurie"—played by a brilliant Timothée Chalamet.  The Laurence's will rotate in and out of the Marsh's orbits during the course of the story, if not impacting them at least having a gravitational influence on their actions. There will be squabbles and jealousies and defiance and regrets, some that are quickly resolved and others that will forever simmer. One of them will die of scarlet fever. Two of them will travel and grow in the process and the survivors will find love but not in the places they (or the readers) expect.

What has always intrigued about "Little Women" is Alcott's subversive way of answering the publisher's daughter's question of what happened to the little women. And the versions that have been presented previously have gone down the path of a regular timeline following the Marsh women from adolescence to adulthood in the same way Alcott presented it in the story. If it's good enough for the author, after all...

But, I think Alcott would have been intrigued by Greta Gerwig's version just for its defiant way of trying to find a better means to tell the story, and in so doing, taking the book and making it an experiment in literary quantum mechanics.

Yeah, I know. Stay with me here.

When we first see Saoirse Ronan (and she's terrific in this but nobody's not), it is later in the timeline. She's in New York at a publisher's, screwing up her courage to present a story that she has written and the appointment that she has with the fellow in charge is not going well. What she's writing is not to buyers' tastes she is man-splained: "Morals don't sell these days. Make it short and spicy and if there's a woman in it make sure that, by the end, she's married...or dead." How Brönte. But, not entirely daunted, she goes back to her boarding house and is so distracted by her putting notes to page that she has to be told that she's on fire as she's standing too close to the grate.

At the same time, youngest March, Amy, is in Paris accompanying her dowager Aunt when she runs into Laurie all the way from Conchord, Mass. where he is drifting and she invites him to a party to which, as he has tended to be with one exception, noncommittal. Meanwhile, Jo, back in New York, is struggling with her writing and seeks the opinion of a Frederich Bhaer (Louis Garrel), a professor and fellow boarder, who has expressed interest in her work. His opinion, to Jo, is damning with faint praise. Another man, another set-back. But, a telegram from Conchord informs her that younger sister Beth is sick and not improving, and Jo sets her mind to returning home to help her sister's recovery. After all, she's done it before.

It is only then that Gerwig begins the story of "Little Women" in a semi-chronological and traditional manner, but she will interrupt that chronology at optimum times of contrast to deepen how things have changed between the girls' past and their present situations, providing back-story and insight as the Marsh women go through the toughest life-and-death situation of their lives, the one that will impact them the most, the repercussions of which effectively ends their childhoods and set their futures on a more sure track.

To my mind, this is the best version I've seen of "Little Women," and the best version of a "classic" since the Ang Lee-Emma Thompson version of Sense and Sensibility. It adheres to the times and constraints of the period in which it's based—no one goes around saying they're going to "throw someone under the bus" or some other hogwash-anachronism to satisfy contemporary audiences. It doesn't pander to modern audiences to buy cheap currency, and it does make sure that "the stakes" of the story conform to the limited status of women in the 1860's, almost out of desperation. There is no goal of emancipation shining at the top of the hill for the characters to reach. They are stuck with their lot and must make the best of it. At one point, Pugh's Amy comes right out and says it at a moment of desperation—she has been challenged by young Master Laurence over the man she has been seeing and from whom she expects a proposal (it is his way of worming his way into her affections after being turned down by Amy's older sister Jo):

Amy March: Well, I believe we have some power over who we love, it isn't something that just happens to a person.

Theodore 'Laurie' Laurence: I think the poets might disagree.

Amy March: Well. I'm not a poet, I'm just a woman. And as a woman I have no way to make money, not enough to earn a living and support my family. Even if I had my own money, which I don't, it would belong to my husband the minute we were married. If we had children they would belong to him not me. They would be his property. So don't sit there and tell me that marriage isn't an economic proposition, because it is. It may not be for you but it most certainly is for me.

Meanwhile, half a world away, Ronan's Jo ("I can't get over my disappointment at being a girl!") is arguing the other side of the coin (although she has always been the more independent of the two), is weakening, and is reconsidering young Master Laurence, more because she has been on her own and she misses her childhood and its possibilities rather than her lot as an adult and merely "being":

Marmee March: What is it?

Jo March: Perhaps... perhaps I was too quick in turning him down.

Marmee March: Do you love him?

Jo March: If he asked me again, I think I would say yes... Do you think he'll ask me again?

Marmee March: But do you love him?

Jo March: [Tearing up] I know that I care more to be loved. I want to be loved.

Marmee March: That is not the same as loving.

Jo March: Women, they have minds and they have souls as well as just hearts. And they've got ambition and they've got talent as well as just beauty, and I'm so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I'm so sick of it! But... I am so lonely.

And her choices are few. And within her own family there are limited options. To quote her publisher, end up either married or dead. Jo comes back to Conchord because her next-youngest sister Beth has had a reoccurrence of the scarlet fever she'd had years earlier, and Jo, thinking her singular care and devotion helped her previous recovery charges back. "You can't stop God's will," says Beth. "God hasn't met my will yet," she imperiously shoots back. "What Jo wills shall be done." And it's here where Gerwig's back and forth story-telling has its largest pay-off, emotionally and directorially and moves the story to its best gambit.

To help Beth's condition, she takes her to the seaside, where this exchange takes place: 

Beth March: I love to listen to you read, Jo, but I love it even better when you read the stories you've written.

Jo March: I don't have any new stories.

Beth March: Why not?

Jo March: Haven't written any.

Beth March: You have pencil and paper. Sit here and write me something.

Jo March: Uhh. I can't, I don't think I can anymore.

Beth March: Why?

Jo March: It's just, no one even cares to hear my stories anyway.

Beth March: Write something for me. You're a writer. Even before anyone knew or paid you. I'm very sick and you must do what I say. Do what Marmee taught us to do. Do it for someone else.

And she does. In a weeks-long effort, she writes, re-writes, edits, and organizes her story—which is a semi-autobiographical account of the life of the March family, her family, and submits it to her publisher who is less than enthusiastic, but it is found by his daughters who are enchanted and ask the question of him—"What happens to the little women?" And so the publisher takes a gamble—hedging the bet with some (of course) editorial suggestions, but Jo gets her book published and watches as the inks are mixed, the pages printed, folded and cut, the binding stitched and the title etched: "Little Women by Louisa May Alcott."

And that's what the cover of the book says: "Little Women by Louisa May Alcott." It's not the character of "Jo." It's Louisa...and Gerwig, by doing that, explodes her "Little Women" adaptation, not just telling the story of Jo and the March sisters and Marmie and Laurie and all the others, but providing the inspiration—as Alcott's life truly was—for the story, for the publication...and for the classic, before it became a classic and a "must-read" and then atrophied to be part of a list on someone's syllabus. 

It was a life. And it's publication as fiction changed things, not only in the prejudices of publishing, but what could be written of, what could be appreciated by children (and adults) and in the aspirations of women (even if the story ends in either marriage or death). Gerwig not only makes the best adaptation of the novel in her Little Women, she also shows how the book that she has adapted nudged things just a bit forward in a patriarchal society—even if the patriarch isn't present—and how women could be more than just fated to be the ingenue in a romance, but rather the vehicle of her fate. That's big. That's revolutionary. And it's been missing from other versions.

It's an adaptation made with considerable love...and considerable respect.

* This is a running gag they used to do on the old spy-comedy television show"Get Smart!", where they had rather insane passwords and call-signs, one of which was "Who Wrote 'Little Women'?" the contact usually said "The book or the picture?" or "The book or the Broadway musical?" and Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 of CONTROL would inevitably blurt out, incredulously "It was a BOOK?!" But, then, when the head of CONTROL first introduced the call-sign "Who wrote 'Little Women?'" to him, 86 replied "Lonely little men...?" Of course, he would.

Incredibles 2

Parr for the Course
or
Sequeling is a Heroic Act...Done Properly.

There's an extraordinary little film that precedes The Incredibles 2—and the standard experimental Pixar short.* It's not animated, it's live action, with director Brad Bird, Holly Hunter, Craig T. Nelson, and Sam Jackson talking about how hard it is to make a movie—especially an animated movie. It has been fourteen years since Bird made the first The Incredibles**—directing Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and Tomorrowland and working on his still-planned historical film 1906 in the interim—and the film acknowledges that it's been a long time since the first one and thanking the audience for their patience in waiting for the second one. It's an off-putting moment, a completely unnecessarily defensive "Mea Culpa" for not doing something so obvious as to make a sequel to an acknowledged crowd-pleaser. I never thought it would come to the day when a major studio would apologize for NOT cashing in. Strange world.

But, not so strange as the one the Parr family continues to live in. Set in a period stuck in the molded polypropylene styled decor of the space-aged 1960's, super-heroes are banned from practicing their selfless heroism, despite the on-going threat of criminal masterminds who do bad things because they're just bad people. In the case of the opening segment, it's "The Underminer" (John Ratzenberger, fulfilling his role as a Pixar good luck charm) who has a huge old infrastructure-destroying boring machine to dig underground and suck the money out of bank-vaults. The Incredible Parr's, with the parentally-disapproved help of kids Dash and Violet (who are supposed to be minding baby Jack-Jack) instinctually go in to help, creating millions of dollars of property-damage, while the bad-guy still manages to get away.

This does not sit well with the local police. The money is insured, after all, but the city infrastructure is still rubble, and—as they are told in an interrogation room—it probably would have been better if they hadn't...helped...at all. Super-heroes there are like the ones in the DC Universe—super-heroes do more harm than good and rather than heroes they are more of a menace to Society. The government must keep them locked down. The situation in the original film is just reinforced in the opening action sequence.

The Parr's are treated like the very criminals they try to stop. Their government supervisor, Rick Dicker (voiced now by Jonathan Banks as the original voice-actor, Pixar alum Bud Luckey,—to whom the film is dedicated—passed away before his part could be recorded) finds that logic so counter-intuitive that he decides to quit his job—but not before he performs a mind wipe on teenager Tony Rydinger (Michael Bird) who recognized Violet in costumer during the opening sequence (which creates some problems later in the movie). The Parr's spend a night, relocated in a hotel , pondering their fate.

But, that pondering is interrupted by super-friend Frozone (Jackson) who hands them a business card from an entrepreneur named Weston Deaver (Bob Odenkirk), who has invited them to a business meeting, with one caveat: wear their old superhero spandex—he's a bit of a fan.

The meeting comes with an offer—Deaver and his sister, Evelyn (Catherine Keener) want to begin a sample rehabilitation publicity program—re-integrating the super's back into accepted society, building trust by their positive deeds. And given that Elastigirl, statistically, has less property damage associated to her past actions, she is chosen as the point-person for the job, with the ultimate goal of of repealing the super-heroes ban. The Deavers provide monitoring, mentoring, new-tech (in the form of a fast-changing motorbike) and a new costume ("It's so dark and angsty" Helen complains).

Bob, although hurt that it's not him who's spear-heading the project, still wants to do his part by being a stay-at-home Dad for the kids, which, if it doesn't mean saving lives and getting the glory for stopping runaway trains, still has its pit-falls—dealing with Dash's new math homework and Violet's social anxiety at school, and training Jack-Jack, who has developed super-powers, not just one, but seventeen of them, that pop up depending on his mood (how like an infant).

While Bob is trying to keep the home-fires from spontaneously combusting, Elastigirl starts to see a pattern in her super-hero deeds; soon, she begins to suspect there's another super-villain behind the unnatural catastrophe's that befall the city, the Screenslaver (voiced by Bill Wise), who manipulates events and the actions of others by hypnotising them through the omnipresent screens in everyday life to do his will. Director Bird always tries to insert some sociiological issues into his work and the whole Screenslaver plot is a clever little subliminal message running through Incredibles 2 about a disengaged populace submerged in their screens—a warning about today's "plugged-in" world (ironically projected in a theater on just such a screen!)

Some of the most pointed lines of dialogue are embedded in this section. At one point Winston says "Politicians don't understand people who do good just because it's right...makes them nervous." Evelyn opines that "People will trade quality for ease every single time." And the Screenslaver's little televised rants that "Superheroes are part of your brainless desire to be passive...super-heroes keep us weak." Not everyone appears to be part of the Deaver's program.***

"It's so dark and angsty!"

So, while the Helen story provides the message and momentum of the story, husband Bob provides the laughs and the heart as he struggles to maintain his family (and composure) as he increasingly loses sleep over the complexities of fatherhood.

That's where the laughs are, particularly when they involve the unpredictable Jack-Jack, who continually expresses innocent delight at what he can do (no matter how potentially destructive it might be)—the highlight being a fight between him and a stray raccoon, a sequence that couldn't be more precisely timed or hilarious, evoking the split-second laughs of the Looney Tunes cartoons or the recent "Scrat" shorts from the Ice Age team.

At the same time, Incredibles 2 wraps itself up in the same space-age suburbia milieu that was so fascinating to see in the original. Composer Michael Giacchino's score moves beyond the first movie's "Mickey-Mousing-Mancini-Music" and more to a sophisticated John Barry sound that accentuates atmosphere over precisely hitting it's marks. 

It's been fourteen years since the original and so the animation endeavors to be a bit more sophisticated with the faces, which creates an odd disconnect with the memory of the smoother lines of the characters previously and occasionally there's a slip between dialogue and lip movement.

There's also a slight results down-shift that the sequel doesn't quite have the freshness of the original—one is at a loss to how it could be. But, when you look at what Incredibles 2 presents, you have to give it extra marks over other "dark and angsty" films in the superhero genre for providing more brains and heart than the brawn that most of them rely on.

* This time Bao, the first directed by a woman, Domee Shi, who makes a film that does more than just push the animated form, but goes into some psychological emotional issues with some shocking—but funny—results.

** I'm glad there are fans. Really, I am. They spend money and thus support films. But so many fans are so clotted and arthritic in their thinking that there were actual protests that there's no "The" in the title of the sequel. I could go further with this, giving a good reason why there isn't one, but the better pursuit would be examining the frames of the film to see the details that Bird—and regularly, Pixar, put into the frame that are so smart and so well-considered.

*** One suspects that Bird is too smart for his own good: he never completely buys into the superficial "everything will get better" platitudes of movie entertainment—his Tomorrowland was practically scuttled by his own cynicism about a better future through technology.

The Post

Based on a Truth Story
or
Black and White and Red All Over

Backstory: Robert McNamara was an analyst. He became Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy administration, but he was, in the depths of his soul, an analyst. If he encountered a problem, he asked for a "study" so that he could look at it in black and white terms, and...maybe...somewhere in the details, he could see a solution, or at least a path to the solution. McNamara started his "Vietnam Study Task Force" in June of 1967, not telling President Lyndon Johnson or Secretary of State Dean Rusk about it. But, the task force wasn't instigated with the purpose of finding a solution, but, rather, to have it in writing what went wrong. The tacit implication of the findings that looked at U.S. policy from the Truman administration to the Johnson years was that the Vietnam War was not being won and might not be won—even while a public face of "steady as she goes" was proffered and more and more American soldiers were being drafted to go to that war and maybe die.

By the time the study was finished, a new administration was in office, that of Richard Nixon. When the McNamara study hit the desk of his Defense Secretary, Melvin Laird, it was largely ignored as a relic of a past administration. It probably wasn't even read.

But, it was of interest. Two copies were sent to the Rand Corporation, and it was from there that one of the contributors to the study, Daniel Ellsberg, who had worked for the U.S. State Department in Vietnam for two years, smuggled out a copy of the study, copied it and distributed it to The New York Times, specifically reporter Neil Sheehan. The study became known as "The Pentagon Papers" and, just as suddenly, "A Big Deal."

Today's story: Steven Spielberg took advantage of the long post-production period for his already-shot Ready Play One and a hole in his schedule after a casting fall-through in his planned film of The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortaro (screenplay by Tony Kushner) to rush through production of The Post, written by Liz Hannah, (her first feature screenplay and chosen to be on 2016's "Black List") and optioned by producer Amy Pascal in late 2016. Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks signed on and Hannah's script was given a once-over by Josh Singer (The Fifth Estate, Spotlight)—for explanations of what the "Papers" entailed and some background on Ellsberg. For their part, The Times, is now grumbling about the billing ("it's a good movie, but bad history," says the Times' then-legal counsel James Goodale), missing the point that the movie might have something more on its mind than just the story of "The Pentagon Papers."

The first few minutes go through the back-story, starting with Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys) going out on a patrol in South Vietnam and witnessing a fire-fight against Viet Cong snipers who are already in place waiting to fire on a U.S. patrol and nimbly changing positions to get a better position in the dense jungle foliage, and ends with Ellsberg glancing over his shoulder as Defense Secretary McNamara (Bruce Greenwood) puts a positive attitude on for the press, after he just saw the Secretary on the plane angrily say that "things are not getting better...that means we're not making any progress." Later, at Rand, Ellsberg takes as many files as he can fit in his briefcase, takes them to a printer's and makes copies that then have the pages numbers cut off, along with the security seal that says "Top Secret - Sensitive."

It's a busy morning for Washington Post publisher Kay Graham (Streep): first she goes over the pending public offering of the Post with her Board Chairman Fritz Beebe (Tracy Letts), then, there's a scolding call from the White House's Bob Halderman griping about a Post reporter sneaking in to First Daughter Tricia Nixon's wedding, and then it's a quick breakfast meeting with Post Editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks), who spends his time waiting for Graham by reading the competing paper, The New York Times. The Tricia Nixon kerfluffle is gone over as well as the IPO, but Bradlee's more concerned about something that ISN'T going on—the Times' Sheehan hasn't published anything for three months. He's onto something, and he wants to know what.

An editorial meeting at the Post has Bradlee (after some polemic about White House wedding protocol**) pay an intern to find out what might be going on...by just walking into The Times' offices and seeing what he can see. Meanwhile, Graham pays a visit to the home of Robert McNamara and, after pleasantries, he warns her that the Times is going to print something bad about him tomorrow and could she...(you know). She expresses sympathy, but tells him she's not going to suppress news even though "he and Margaret" helped out so much when her husband (her predecessor as publisher) (you know) died, which she'll always be grateful for...

It's a nuanced conversation...about loyalties and favors, past kindnesses...but with an understanding about duties, as well, and the roles one is required to play with only the implications that it's understood, but not really saying it. These are not rat-a-tat conversations of the Sorkin variety, like everyone already knows what they're going to say because they were practicing last night; these are interactions that are messy and interrupting and urgent, and Streep is the master of saying things even when she doesn't complete a sentence and moves on. Watching her and Hanks (at that breakfast scene) push each other and Hanks act like he's got the final say and Streep turn her head like it's all over and hum a bit as if she's stifling a rebuke, but the energy of it can't help to rattle in her throat...oh, it's a master-class on acting. And that scene's only breakfast.

I read Peggy Noonan's book about speech-writing for the Reagan Administration and she had a particularly thorny relationship with ABC News' White House Correspondent Sam Donaldson, but she liked Donaldson and the two, who might have seen each other as combatants, were actually quite fond of each other—"Professionals don't bear grudges" was her explanation. In The Post, there is a camaraderie, both social and professional that makes things complicated: Bradlee was pals with the Kennedy's; Graham, with the Johnson's and McNamara, all would be tarnished with the same brush if "The Papers" are published and there is some soul-searching done about it. But, the result of all this is, she marches into Bradlee's office and tells him that McNamara is worried about something in tomorrow's Times.

One of Bradlee's reporters, Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk) thinks he may know what's going on, so he calls a colleague at the Times, asking about old times and, hey, remember that guy Ellsberg?—but the man's gone missing. Then, during a protest rally, a box of papers is dropped on a nearest reporter's desk. Things are starting to pop on the story and by the time the Post has got the papers, Nixon's White House** has come down with the unprecedented move of a cease and desist order...on a free press...and threats of espionage charges. While Bradlee tries to get the low-down on the pages dropped at their door-step, Bagdikian travels to Boston and finds Ellsberg and all of the papers.

"...just...government secrets"

So...what are you going to do with them? First, find the story. Then, find out if it's worth it (it is). Then, talk to the lawyers and see what the risks are, and there are lots of risks, what with the Nixon Team frothing at the mouth—mind you, frothing—about documents not pertaining to their watch (but Nixon doesn't know that***) and the timing couldn't be worse for the paper, financially. given the recent IPO. As the trailer says, "What are you going to do, Mrs. Graham?"

And here's what makes The Post so special, and why "The Times" wouldn't be so interesting a film: Kay Graham doesn't know. But she knows the stakes: her family has owned the Post since...forever; her father gave the reins to her husband, while she tended to raising the kids and socializing; after the "accident" (it was a suicide, actually), she worked with her institutional family knowledge of publishing and got up to speed to become not just the de-facto publisher, but the "honest-to-God" publisher, and her IPO is to get funds to expand the reporter pool. That's high stakes. Throw in the threat of government interference and even jail-time, and we're looking at something that won't enhance the company, but probably kill it.

On top of that, Graham is uncomfortable with her position—she feels ill-prepared and ill-equipped to deal with the issues. If she didn't have her own doubts, seemingly every man in every room she walks into will be only too happy to tell her that. The Post just might be the first deliberate film (outside of the action genre, at least) to be spoken in the not-too-foreign language of "man-splaining", culminating in what might be Spielberg's tour de force sequence of the film—a multi-lined telephone call in which Streep's Graham is alone in a room (deliberately) while she is getting pressure from all sides to publish or not to publish...given all the stakes...given all the pressures. It's where Streep's performance, at times tremulous, at times aggressively (deflectingly) social, is such an essential co-conspirator in the text. Yes, it's about "The Pentagon Papers," and Freedom of the Press, and defending it from encroaching governmental influence (all topical, as it will always be in a messy democracy), but it is also about finding the weight of the feminine voice and acknowledging that weight against the basso profundo's (real or imagined) sparring with it in the room. It's about Katharine Graham becoming...not "Kay," but KATHARINE Graham. THE Katharine Graham. Owner and publisher of The Washington Post. Unquestionably.

And that's a different story. Hannah (and Spielberg) do a "rope-a-dope", selling the sizzle of "The Pentagon Papers" (and telling that story well), but their focus is on the story of a woman not only establishing her place, but going "all in", relishing it and finding her own comfort in it. Timely? Yeah...even more than the "Press" angle. 

So, yes: important movie. But, as impressive as it is, marks have to be taken off for Spielberg sometimes using his directorial clout to bludgeon a point too far home. Towards the end, Graham makes a remark using her husband's phrase that reporting is the first draft of History and then making the point that it's a perpetual process and walks away, leaving Hanks to say "Yes, it is." It's "nice" that a man deigns to weigh in with his opinion, but they didn't need it. Unnecessary, really. Maybe it's a rebuke that a guy always has to have the last word, but it's ...irritating, especially with what has come before (And I love Streep's last line of the film—"Glad we don't have to THAT again"—it was ad-libbed). And one could make a joke about this being a prequel to All the President's Men—but, in that film, Katharine Graham isn't even portrayed.

So, very good, with some qualifications. But, there are lovely little Spielberg touches (besides the mechanics of that earlier mentioned phone-call). There is a great visual primer on the process of creating hot metal typesetting for printing that will make one immediately nostalgic for "the old days." And it is capped by a shot that will impress those of us who were never newspaper reporters of the old stripe, but will probably seem so commonplace to those that were that it might not be given its prominence. There's a shot of Bob Odenkirk at his typewriter as the massive presses of the newspaper start to roll and the entire room is filled with the muffled sound and the slight agitation of the power of the presses...and by extension, the Press itself.

Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee leaving court after the decision in their favor.

* That reporter, Judith Martin, would become the charming syndicated advice columnist "Miss Manners."

** Know what's eerie? Hearing the actual tapes of Nixon's phone conversations embedded in the narrative. 

*** Nixon might not have known what was in those documents, but he was afraid of them. During the 1968 campaign, as he was running for President as a private citizen, he had surreptitiously used emissaries to contact the South Vietnamese government to delay peace talks until after the election...where they might get more favorable terms from him. Nixon sabotaged the Peace Talks to get elected (a move that when sitting Pres. Johnson heard about it, called it "treasonous"—but he said that about a lot of things), but that was too late in the game to be covered by the Pentagon Papers study. However, trying to find legally useful evidence of his actions might have been the reason for the Watergate break-in.