Steven Spielberg’s career has always been marked by two distinct characteristics: optimism (there’s not a cynical bone in his body), and a sentimentality that underlines most characters, subjects and approaches. The former trait — supported by a thrilling, propulsive approach to storytelling — has contributed to countless classic pieces of cinema, but the latter, mawkish qualities have marred many of his films. When the two elements dovetail, one gets the magical uniqueness that epitomizes Spielberg at his best. But when that alchemic mix is off, the results can be uneven.
READ MORE: ‘The Post’ Trailer: Steven Spielberg Releases The Pentagon Papers
For example, the little girl in the red dress in “Schindler’s List” or the hokey bookends to “Saving Private Ryan” undercut what’s already implicit on the screen. Both are still incredible, time-tested films, but the director’s maudlin and sometimes overtly patriotic sensibilities have always been his Achilles heel. This tendency to over-romanticize is present in his latest film, “The Post,” a committed paean to journalism — and surprisingly, Spielberg’s most overtly feminist film since “The Color Purple” — that’s perhaps just a touch too lionizing. Though far from outright schmaltzy, “The Post,” about an unprecedented conflict between journalism, government and American values, is also incredibly tense and absorbingly dramatic, but Spielberg ever-so-gently presses on the gas of nostalgic idealism enough times that he blemishes what might have been a pitch-perfect movie.
A crackling procedural and a kind of quasi-prequel to Alan J. Pakula’s Watergate drama “All The President’s Men,” Spielberg is clearly an admirer of this magnificent movie, one of the greatest American films ever made. And it’s clear what his motivations are and the parallels “The Post” makes to today’s fraught political culture, and the slanted “fake news” attack on journalism, that serves to discredit intelligent, hardworking reporters. “The Post” is a direct two-hour subtweet at Trump and his wantonly crooked White House administration, but Spielberg can’t help but spell it all out for you, regardless. Instead of adhering to the “show don’t tell” tenets of “All The President’s Men,” Spielberg underlines enough already-obvious lines of dialogue that it leaves you with a briny taste in your mouth, especially in some key moments.
So, if “All The President’s Men” focused on two tenacious reporters and the daring newspaper that emboldened them, “The Post” centers on how the Washington Post made its name, forged its reputation, and staked its claim on the national stage after years of acting as a worthwhile, but nonetheless strictly local paper.
The film has two heroes: Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks, typically rocksteady), the driven Editor-In-Chief of the Washington Post, and Katharine Graham (a mostly exceptional Meryl Streep), the anxious first female publisher that inherited the paper after her husband’s suicide. And while “The Post” tackles the infamous Pentagon Papers, the crucial news reports that rocked the White House and paved the way for Nixon’s fall, and the historic Supreme Court judgements regarding freedom of the press and the First Amendment, it largely tells a one character story: Graham summoning the courage to overcome her self-doubt, her numerous detractors and doubters, and take more than just symbolic ownership of the paper.
In “The Post,” Hanks’ irascible Ben Bradley is fully formed, but he does evolve from ambitious reporter to understanding he’s at the epicenter of a story that involves the foundational ideas of defending the truth. He’s a hardnosed journalist whose chief ambition is to actually make news rather than regurgitate investigative reports from the superior New York Times. But it’s Streep’s Graham that faces the biggest obstacles and undergoes the film’s chief transformation.
Cozy with family friend Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood), the Secretary of Defense, and all too aware of what’s inside the Pentagon Papers, one of Graham’s chief dilemmas is loyalty. Will she go soft on her friend or stick to the principles of the truth? Corporate interest, shareholders and the daunting legacy of the Washington Post weigh down on Graham, who is viewed as the publisher only because she inherited the paper, not because she earned the title. And everywhere, there are dismissive men trying to second guess her opinions and sew self-doubt in her resolve. She eventually summons the nerve to do the right thing, but it should be said, her transition to strong, empowering woman could have used another scene to feel more natural and convincing.
While she and Bradlee are at odds, he racing forward, Graham more careful and even fearful of the repercussions that could befall the paper, the two eventually come to an understanding with the newspaper reporter finally coming around to acknowledge the complexity of her position. To publish or not to publish, that is the quotidian, yet rivetingly posed question of “The Post.”
But there’s a preaching to the choir quality to the film’s feminism and glorification of the Post reporters. While well-intentioned monologues speak power to truth, many of them feel engineered to be punctuated by roaring applause. Please clap, “The Post” says when finishing a speech about why women have endured enough bullshit. Insert applause here, the film says following a soliloquy eulogizing journalism. Much of this pandering is admittedly subtle, but it’s there and insults the intelligence of the viewer. And in its final, critical moments, “The Post” begins to fall apart as it veers into the treacly as it honors the film’s newspaper team.
Elements of the film are dazzling, naturally. Spielberg can’t help but shoot the shit out of every frame with impeccable craft, blocking and composition. His hurried camera wrings tension out of every scene and creates a shark-like momentum to a picture that never rests and always moves on the tips of its toes. Chief among the impressive elements of “The Post” is a deep bench of extraordinary supporting players. Simply put, “The Post” has the most amazing ensemble of the year including Tracy Letts, Carrie Coon, David Cross, Alison Brie, Jesse Plemons, Matthew Rhys, Michael Stuhlbarg, Bradley Whitford, and Zach Woods, but special mention should go to Sarah Paulson as Hanks’ dutiful wife and an amazing Bob Odenkirk, as one of the Post’s most determined and uncompromising news reporters.
There’s not a more relevant, timely and arguably vital picture in 2017 than “The Post.” It’s the capital I important movie the culture needs in this very moment. But anyone who hasn’t been brainwashed and has a modicum of intelligence understands how the First Amendment and freedom of press is essential to our democracy. There’s no American flag waving at the end of “The Post,” but the loud newspaper printing press machine that whirls off at the end might as well be draped in the same colors.
Perhaps in the age of fake news, partisan philosophies and undermining of the free press, the galvanizing “The Post” does need to idealize and remind the viewer just how fragile democracy can be during the reign of autocrats. But this emphasis does detract from the film. Rousing, benevolent ideas of hope, resolve, and courage are all at the forefront of the well-meaning, compelling, “The Post.” And the movie intensely ticks away furiously like an on-deadline journo pounding out the copy on the keyboard, but if we’re going to write about the delicate balance of ingredients that create masterful Spielberg movies, then there’s no denying, admirable or not, how the picture is just a few keystrokes off. [B]