Snap Review: The Post

Have you ever wanted to find out a little bit about a new film to get an indication of whether you’ll like it or not, and ended up reading the entire story? We have. That is why our snap reviews are designed specifically to help you decide if it’s one to watch without giving everything away. 

Star Rating: 4.0 Very Good

Two Multi-Oscar Winning greats, Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks team up for the first time under the Multi-Oscar Winning director Steven Spielberg in The Post. This biographical drama has as a central character Katherine Graham, the first female publisher of a major American Newspaper. Timely in many ways, the story line stresses the need for freedom of press. Given the calibre of the director, leads and supporting cast The Post has been nominated for two Oscars. Best Picture and, for the 21st time, Best Actress Meryl Streep.

The story, set in 1971, focuses on the true events leading up to the controversial publication of the ‘Pentagon Papers’. Top secret documents that implicated five different Presidents of the USA in a catalogue of deceits regarding the United States involvement in the Vietnam War.

Meryl Streep unsurprisingly excels in her role as owner of ‘The Washington Post’ who was known to be insecure, with a dislike of public speaking, but nevertheless faced huge challenges head on and stood up to her critics. This film pays homage to Katherine in a way that the hugely successful 1976 film All The President’s Men did not. The latter film about the Washington Post’s exposé of the Watergate scandal that engulfed President Nixon and his in house confidantes soon after. Katherine was basically airbrushed out of that story altogether. 

Ben Bradlee, the editor in charge at the time is played by Tom Hanks with familiar avuncular charm partially concealing a hard edged conviction that they must publish or be damned. 

The supporting cast is littered with familiar faces from Acting School’s top rank. Bob Odenkirk, hugely popular as Saul from Breaking Bad, plays journalist Ben Bagdikian whose doggedness allows him to play an important part in the story. Sarah Paulson (12 Years a Slave) is Ben’s wife, Tony, who although she doesn’t get much screen time, is allowed a moving speech that encapsulates the superior motives of the free press.  

This movie has, as you would expect from Steven Spielberg, its tense and dramatic moments. But it is essentially a talking heads piece that draws superb performances all round.

Great effort has been made to recreate the 1970’s journalistic setting. The Production Design team have deployed old photos from The Washington Post archives and replicated everything from the furniture, telephones, type writers, papers and even the old-fashioned Linotype machines used to print the newspapers. Characters period clothing and hairstyles are lovingly copied and there is a sense of another time, another world.

The war in Vietnam is the background noise in this movie but the real battle being fought was for, with The Post’s very existence at stake, the freedom of the Press. Parallels today abound and one is left to ponder if the paranoia and self-interest of government has lessened. Has the casual misogyny and sexism in the corridors of power been extinguished? In the delirious time of President Donald Trump, can we dare to believe that there is more honesty in the Oval Office?

The Post is a reminder that the winds of change blow slowly.

Details

Language: English

Release Date: January 19, 2018 (UK)

Genre: Drama, Biography

Length: 116 minutes

Country: United States

Director: Steven Spielberg

Producers: Steven Spielberg, Kristie Macoscko Kreiger, Amy Pascal  

Cast: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson