Saturday Night

"I Didn't Tape the Dress Rehearsal"
 or

"Who Are You in the Metaphor?"

 

I like director Jason Reitman's work, whether he's swinging for the fences (Thank You for Smoking, Up in the Air) or playing it safe (Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Juno, Young Adult). I'm sure with every single one of his projects he did not believe he was "playing it safe." All of his films, I'm sure, had challenges that I'd never be privy to, that affected his decisions to make the film, or how he made them. 

 

Maybe it's because these projects all hover around the same theme, "Lies we tell ourselves," which seems to show up in all of his work, where we're never sure if anybody's telling the truth because it's our instinct to believe the lie. That's quite a sophisticated thesis and sometimes the movie doesn't warrant the effort and sometimes it does, but it's a very American trait, and given his willingness to go back to it again and again, I don't think Reitman could ever make a movie not set in the United States. We seem to have that weakness, whether it be hope or hubris or merely sleeping through the sedative of "The American Dream".

It's hard to say where Lorne Michaels (played, again brilliantly, by Gabriel LaBelle of The Fabelmans) falls in those options. I'd wager on "hubris" these days, but back in the days when "Saturday Night" (the first title of what would become "Saturday Night Live"*), who knows what it might have been. Lorne Michaels was Canadian, for one thing, but he'd had a lot of success in the States as a writer and when NBC was in one of their little tiffs with "Tonight Show" host Johnny Carson, they decided they wanted to prove to their late night star that they didn't need him and that they didn't have to fill an empty Saturday late-night slot with another re-run of one of his past shows. NBC Late-night "suit" Dick Ebersol (played by Cooper Hoffman) was charged with filling the time.

The idea was a "live" sketch comedy show with prominent musical acts who didn't show up on the likes of "The Dean Martin Show" and more in spirit with "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" (which had been canceled after many problems with the network over material deemed too controversial), but without regular hosts—initially the idea was to have rotating hosts of Lily Tomlin (Michaels had produced one of her specials), Richard Pryor and George Carlin, but Pryor made NBC nervous—and, with that spirit, aimed for a younger audience demographic and a hipper crowd than NBC was used to garnering. Michaels wanted to make a show that parodied television for an age-group that grew up watching television (and now, ironically, is making a version that for kids who grew up watching "Saturday Night Live"!)

Having read the oral history "Live from New York: The Complete Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests" (by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales), and I know a lot of the stories culled for Reitman's Saturday Night, some of which happened, some of which only happened later during the chaotic first season, and some of which didn't happen at all—the bit with Milton Berle (J.K. Simmons) dressing down Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) didn't happen (although Berle did show off the size of his penis to SNL writer Alan Zweibel...at Zweibel's curious request). Yes, a lot of it is true (and Reitman goes into the whole Johnny Carson dilemma with the moment it's decided to go "live" with the show or roll the Carson tape being the dramatic high-point), but some of it is left out...like character actor George Coe's short tenure as a "Not Ready for Prime-Time Player" and an awful lot of short shrift is given the writers. But if you put all of it in, it would have been epic-length—not unlike Michaels' 3 hour dress rehearsal that has to be cut down to an hour and a half.

Even with the deletions, Reitman has to move his movie fast and it hurdles along in long tracking shots until it finds a conversation of interest or an arresting image—frequently involving a llama—then swings his camera between each side of the discussion before veering off with a passer-by who'll act as tour-guide to the next section, as sub-plots whirl in the background. It's not done in one continuous shot—something this complex would make Alfonso Cuaron's head, or Alejandro González Iñárritu's continuity director, explode—but one gets the simulation of continuous unbroken action for a good part of the film and it ramps up the tension, if the myriad disasters falling around Michaels' head—be they flaming scripts or newly-installed studio lights or a Belushi-hurled ash-tray—weren't enough. 

Of course, it's tough to give this stuff any verisimilitude without threatening to turn it into caricature—Labelle assiduously avoids the Michaels-based "Dr. Evil" voice, for example**—but one wonders if the audience cares, since they know Chevy Chase from endlessly repeating "National Lampoon" movies or his "older" roles and probably don't know any of the writers at all. Some of the passing references to other "Saturday Night" bits might go over their heads. And one, rather sheepishly, admits that the movie will probably play with "the older crowd" beyond the show's originally intended demographic so that it becomes an episode of nostalgia. Yikes.

I remember "Saturday Night", initially, because it aired in rotation with NBC "Weekend", a brilliantly written news program with Lloyd Dobyns and Linda Ellerbee, that was a favorite of mine and I was always fairly irked when it wasn't on and "Saturday Night" was. It grew on me, however, when Paul Simon and then Richard Pryor hosted (in one of the best overall episodes of the show's first season). And although I think the past couple of seasons have been pretty strong, one can't help but be chagrined that the show is 50 years old and that it's audience is about the same as our folks' when they were watching "Dean Martin."

It would have been the ultimate irony if Reitman had ended the film with an acknowledgment of that fact. One would doubt it would get the approval of Michaels and his production company Broadway Video who had little to do with this movie other than to say "well, we won't say you can't can't do it" (and the "disclaimer" about "work of fiction" and "persons, living or dead" is a briar-patch of timorous legalese). Even self-described "revolutionaries" get old and stale after awhile...just as sure as "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead".

The very first sketch on "Saturday Night":

Head-writer Michael O'Donahugh, John Belushi and Chevy Chase

* The reason they didn't use the the "SNL" title initially was because competing network ABC already had a variety show called "Saturday Night Live"...hosted by...Howard Cosell?

 

** And kudos must go to Nicholas Braun, who plays both Andy Kaufman AND Jim Henson.

 

Competing posters of Saturday Night

which, more, in spirit, tells of the difficulties they had.

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.

Ford vs. Ferarri (LeMans '66)

A Spanner in the Works
or
"Am I On Fire?"

Not a "car-guy." Never have been. Give me an engine and four wheels and I'm happy. I don't associate myself with horse power, don't give a damn about "cubes," and don't equate my manhood with the make and model of what gets me around.

And I'm enough of a cynic that, although I have a model of James Bond's Aston Martin DB5 sitting on my window sill, I resist the urge to see if it's leaking oil on its base as per its reputation (it's not that accurate!). For me, if it goes, it's good.

So, racing movies leave me cold. Whether The Crowd Roars or Speedway or Grand Prix or Le Mans or Herbie: Fully Loaded, they're empty movies with a lot of hardware beauty shots and cardboard characters who can't really explain the pull of the mystique of racing, when it boils down to making a lot of left turns at high speed.

Ron Howard's Rush came closest to a good racing film because, although it had its own fair share of carburetor-porn, it was about two racers with a love/hate relationship that lasted over years and tracks, and how the two bickered and supported each other owing to their personalities and how it extended over the years because, and in spite of, the competition. They saw each other's value beyond who was first and who was second.

So, at the end, racing movies have had a checkered past.

But, director James Mangold's Ford v Ferrari is the first one I've seen that is entertaining, has its requisite gross weight of Ford/Ferrari fetishism, and even turns the corner on attempting to communicate the need for speed and the intellectual pursuit of putting as much potential energy into a motor engine.

The story, which is based—for the most part—on fact, tells of how the Ford Motor Company, under the leadership of Henry Ford II (in the film, Tracy Letts), and at the urging of Lee Iacocca (played in the film by Jon Bernthal), sought to change the image of Ford, which had suffered set-backs in the family-vehicle field, especially with their Edsel model. Iacocca saw Ford as staid and wanted to make it hip and jazzy to appeal to the Baby-Boomers who were just entering their market share. For Iacocca, it was a matter of style over substance and he wanted to push the planned "Mustang" model as pure "sports-car" material by pushing it into racing. This was to attempt to bite into the Italian car-market, especially Ferrari, whose cars had been dominating the 24 hours of LeMans.

After Iacocca fails to come to terms with Enzo Ferrari over the acquisition of his car company, it turns into a grudge match—Ford II becomes determined to beat Ferrari at LeMans—and Iacocca turns to former LeMans winner Carol Shelby (Matt Damon) to modify a Mustang GT to compete at the French race, and gives him 6 weeks to do it.

It is a daunting task, and to drive, Shelby turns to Ken Miles (Christian Bale) a professional driver and mechanic who is brilliant at what he does, but is self-described as "not a people-person" (which, if I recall, was not a phrase used in the early 1960's). Uncompromising, a perfectionist at engineering and on the race course, Miles thinks making a Ford car race-worthy is an impossible task ("unless you got two, three hundred years"), especially given the corporate group-think entrenched at Ford.* 

But, an IRS lien of Miles' garage makes him think twice, and he takes on the job, rubbing—as he does—the Ford execs the wrong way. Those middle-men—especially Leo Beebe (played by Josh Lucas) tolerate Miles' tinkering with the T, which he feels has potential when working with Ford engineers and the Shelby team to shave the design of the model, while also fine-tuning the engine to achieve maximum RPM's. But, when it comes to Miles actually driving the car in the race, that's where they drop the yellow flag. Miles is not a "Ford man," he's not a team player. So when the first race-prepping for LeMans occurs, Shelby is strong-armed to replace him with a more "acceptable" driver...to the Ford execs.

The result is not a "win" putting the entire racing project into question—especially when Ford II's ego is on the line—and Shelby has to use tough-talk and a challenging personal relationship with the CEO to not compromise in his efforts, especially in response to the interference of Ford middle-men.

It's an interesting dynamic. Innovation against corporate interests, all engaged in their own war with different concepts of what constitutes "winning," and pushed to the point where the very goal of winning is in jeopardy as compromise compromises the intended goal. For all the "we're all on the same team here" happy-speak, it is impossible if the goals are different. Sometimes, getting your way gets in the way.

Getting in the way is only a defensive measure on the race-track. And how Ford v. Ferrari characterizes Miles makes him the perfect-combination of driver-engineer, able to perceive not just the performance of his vehicle, but its potential to outlast and out-perform his competition, giving him an advantage in moments of opportunity. The race sequences are thrilling and kinetic, and, combined with its emphasis on character and stakes makes it far more involving than most films of the type coming down the pike.

And Ford v. Ferrari is unique in that it manages to convey that adrenaline kick that fuels drivers and their love of the competition. It does that so well, it should also should have a warning suggesting a designated driver for the ride home. 

Damon and Bale, Miles and Shelby

* Yeah, yeah (I hear you say) how are the performances. Terrific. Damon calls forth his inner Matthew McConaughey for the twangy, charismatic Shelby and Bale (rail thin again) is a wonderfully mocking Ken Miles—the person you come away remembering the most.

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.