Director: Maria Schrader
Writer: Rebecca Lenkiewicz
Cast: Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, Patricia Clarkson, Ashley Judd, Andre Braugher
Two of this year’s films about women grappling with the anguish and aftermath of assault have titles that are precise, pointed and incredibly poignant. With She Said and Women Talking, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year, the otherwise ordinary act of women having a conversation is the stuff of empire-toppling significance, an accurate reassessment following the #MeToo reckoning of 2017. For too long, wrongdoing has thrived on silence. Now, two-word titles are enough to allude to a movement encompassing decades worth of women’s stories.
For all its defiant urging to speak, She Said, based on New York Times’ journalists Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor’s investigation into Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s history of predation and abuse, is largely quiet and restrained. It’s not self-congratulatory in its approach. In fact, there’s some irony to how a film chronicling the producer’s takedown is the kind of end-of-year, awards-buzzy prestige film that he himself backed with regularity in the past. However, She Said avoids sensationalism even as it accrues powerful sentiment. While this makes for a sensitive and thoughtful cinematic handling of a film about sexual assault, the lack of urgency results in less-than-compelling movie about investigative journalism.