Review of The Post (2017) by Chris B — 02 Dec 2018

This movie takes place over about a week, in which the fate of the paper, and the nation?, hangs in the balance. The New York Times has scooped everyone, including the Washington Post, by getting their hands on a top-secret report on the Vietnam War. The story follows half a dozen people affiliated with the Post as they try catch the Times financially and editorially. It's a compelling and interesting story, with actors that are great, although I think none turn in their best performance here. For me the downfall of this movie is that there is a bit of dissonance between the grandeur given to the events and the actual characters taking center stage. The events will strike at the fundamental power balance between the press and the government, key aspects of a healthy democracy. The movie does have a lot of dialogue/shouting about this, but it seems like a secondary thought for all the characters, a convenient smokescreen for their primary motivation, which is actually ambition - they want to be the best recognized journalists, they want to save the family paper, or they want to make money and avoid jail. Except for one minor character, the guy who Xeroxed and stole the report in the first place, defending the country was secondary. This is not to say that these motivations are unrealistic or unreasonable; but to start with characters that have fairly mundane games to play, and then to expect us to cheer as they jump on a convenient bandwagon, seemed to be a bit much.

That said, its well filmed and the pacing is great. The characters are faced with decisions that force them to make hard choices. The real powerful emotional growth in the movie comes from Streep's Katherine Graham overcoming the male dominated business world that excluded her despite being the owner of the paper, and Hanks's Ben Bradlee stepping realizing the importance of stepping aside to allow her to do so. If the movie had just focused on this transformation and not been distracted by a lot of other noise, it would have been a great one.