One of the worst-kept Hollywood secrets was that Harvey Weinstein, a co-founder and leader of Miramax from 1979 until breaking away and forming The Weinstein Company in 2005, was an absolute monster to work for.  Studio executives and other talent hated his wrath, but for the countless actresses, assistants, and other young female professionals looking to break into the industry, he was an abuser and a sexual predator.  The money and power he had over the town, however, made him seem invincible until an article broke from the New York Times in 2017, authored by Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan), Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan), and Rebecca Corbett (Patricia Clarkson) that led to more than 80 women going on the record about the abuse they suffered under the now-disgraced mogul, the effects of which rippled through all industries as companies began to reassess their own policies and codes of conduct. 

She Said is a journalism thriller from director Maria Schrader working from a script penned by Rebecca Lenkiewicz who adapted not only the New York Times article but also the memoir of the same name which was co-written by Kantor and Twohey chronicling their experience in bringing the article to press.  From Universal Pictures, it goes without saying that She Said is an important film, but at 128 minutes it feels a little long for how it is presented yet too short to tell the full story that the script clearly wants to deliver.  This identity crisis is evident throughout, but even though its multiple focus shifts throughout the duration, it still manages to tell a conveying story. 

A decision needed to be made early on by Lenkiewicz if She Said would be a story about journalism or a story about the women who suffered under Weinstein.  Instead of picking one route or the other, Lenkiewicz’s script tries to have its cake and eat it too by lending a fair amount of screentime to both aspects of the story.  To choose just a single entry point into this decades-spanning history of abuse would greatly change the entire structure of the film; to focus on the investigative reporting would send it down a path more akin to a thriller whereas focusing on the women who came forward with their allegations would be more suited for documentary.  Lenkiewicz gives audiences a little bit of both worlds, and then has to contend with the added elements of who her audience actually is and what kind of prior understanding of this case and these topics they are bringing to the screening. For the most part, she does strike a good balance in catching those up to speed without backing knowledge of this specific case or the world of journalism, but not boring those who have that prior understanding by making sure the narrative still moves along in an engaging way. 

The film opens with Mulligan’s Twohey who is wrapping a story disclosing the history of allegations and scandals surrounding Donald Trump on the campaign trail to his eventual White House victory in 2016. It is very purposefully opened in this way to not only remind audiences of the unfortunate prevalence of sexual abuse in the upper echelons of the business world but to later frame the question which the reporters must grapple with: if the country would vote for an alleged abuser as president, why would they care about the actions of some movie producer? In this way, She Said is not only a film about the Weinstein case but the entire systemic rot that was uncovered through the #MeToo movement. Even within the Weinstein case, there is an entire network of powerful men who helped facilitate the silence of the victims through settlements and oppressive NDAs. Irwin Reiter (Zach Grenier) is one such person from that network who eventually opens up as he realizes that the Company lied to him as well about the severity of these allegations so that he would more easily comply with the cover-up and write-offs. 

It is a powerful moment that comes late in the film, and it rightfully feels like a victory for Jodi who has had multiple meetings with the man and now has evidence in hand to back the claims, but this moment of guilt and atonement does not take away from the power of the women’s stories which Lenkiewicz examines throughout the narrative. Rightfully so, she does not take away from the voice of the victims who had lived, some for decades, in silence before this story broke. Rowena Chiu’s (Angela Yeoh) and Zelda Perkins’ (Samantha Morton) account of their time at Miramax occupies much of the action, for lack of a better word, of the second act as Jodi secures their story, and this gives way to a very emotional sequence with Laura Madden (Jennifer Ehle) who recounts her ordeal, but one of the most harrowing moments comes when the film plays the entire voice recording between Weinstein and Ambra Gutierrez, a model and finalist for Miss Italy in 2010, all while Natasha Braier’s camera careens through an eerily empty luxury hotel. 

This melding of real-life evidence and bending it so that it may fit into a more traditional narrative structure for release begs the question of whether or not it was too soon to release the film, especially given that Weinstein was sitting trial during the promotional leadup, and the jury instructed to steer clear of the film until after they had arrived at a verdict.  There is no right or wrong answer to the question, but it is one that finds itself being asked any time a film dealing with recent major events is released. It may seem premature in its release for those entrenched in the industry news as there may not be much new here to latch on to, but for the regular joe that might not be as keyed into these events, it could be eye-opening. On the other hand, it always feels just a little jarring when actors portray themselves on screen as Ashley Judd bravely does here and Gwyneth Paltrow briefly lends her voice for a phone conversation. Their direct involvement is not enough to remove one from the tension of the narrative and does help hammer home that this is a history of real abuse that happened to real people, but it also draws attention to the fact that this story, in the real world, is ongoing. A notable digression about the casting, led by Francine Maisler in conjunction with Hire Survivors Hollywood is that many of the women in the film are survivors of Weinstein, and while Harvey is physically represented in the film by Mike Houston, he is given very little power in the film. Lenkiewicz’s script never sensationalizes the drama, presenting the women’s accounts in a matter-of-fact way, and it avoids the traps of filling the dialogue with twitter-forged buzzwords and allows these accounts to stand on their own as accounts of egregious crimes against the human condition. But to return to the question of the timeliness of the film, we must consider the same question which was bounced around a conference room in the New York Times office when deciding to pursue the story: if not now, then when? If not by us, then who? 

When looking at the journalism legwork in She Said it is both unfair and unavoidable to compare it to Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men (1976), even subconsciously, but Pakula’s work has become the cultural high-water mark within the genre which, in fairness, it should be stated was released just two years after Nixon’s resignation in the fallout of the Watergate Scandal. Now, these scandals are quite different, and even more so the landscape of the journalism industry is different, but when boiled down both films are about a team working towards a similar goal and willing to pour their entire heart and soul into bringing out the truth to a public that looks to them and trusts them for answers. The late-night phone calls and long hours away from home, walking through the city always with an eye over the shoulder as an unmarked van slows down, a skepticism when the taxi driver is taking an unobvious route through a tunnel: these elements are all rewarded by the triumphant scenes of racing through the newsroom and the elation when a source agrees to be named. While the three mouse clicks to publish is far less visually exciting than the old-time press whirring away producing the next morning’s headline, the feeling of pride and victory – of the shimmering rays of justice peeking at last through the clouds – is still eminent in the final narrative moments of She Said. 

It is in the newsroom, Mulligan feels at home in this role which stands up for women everywhere, a cause which the actor feels strongly about evidenced both by her recent roles and her activist work off-screen. Kazan’s role takes much longer to develop and while at first she seems comfortable to be in the backseat, or worse regulated to the backseat when Megan returns from maternity leave, over the course of the narrative she does not wither away as she is the one who is interviewing many of the women for the article and becomes the emotional bridge for the audience to hear these stories. When not in the office, the chemistry between the two reporters and their editor, Rebecca, provides moments of levity in the film, but some of the dynamics feel underdeveloped given what little we see of them together out of work matched with how they handle themselves when back together. 

It feels as if there is a longer version of this film, or *shudders* a ten-part Ryan Murphy mini-series, that delves into this dynamic and also some of these wider network characters: Washington lawyer Lanny Davis (Peter Friedman), Weinstein Company board member Lance Maerov (Sean Cullen), retired Miramax CFO John Schmidt (John Mazurek), as well as the changing culture at large which Jodi is made aware of when she realizes her young daughter knows, at least vaguely, about the concept of rape. These elements which are peppered in throughout Schrader’s film help to paint the full picture of just how deep and widespread this abuse and cover-up reached, but because it never expounds too deeply on them all, parts of the film feel like they were building up to nothing and gives an unfortunate jumpy quality to Hansjörg Weißbrich’s editing which otherwise worked very well at increasing tension on a scene-by-scene basis and brought excitement to the chore of watching someone sitting at a desk and waiting for the phone to ring. Sometimes at odds with itself, She Said is still an engaging and important film that delivers a strong narrative while handling these real-life accounts with careful dignity and respect. The script is careful to find a balance that, while still championing the work of Megan and Jodi, they are not allowed to outshine the heroism of Weinstein’s victims and the film does not feel self-congratulatory.