She Said

 Year:  2022

Director:  Maria Schrader

Screenplay:  Rebecca Lenkiewicz, based on the book She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey

Starring:  Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, Jennifer Ehle, Samantha Morton, Ashley Judd

Running Time:  129 minutes

Genre:  Drama

In 2017, New York Times journalists Jodi Kantor (Kazan) and Megan Twohey (Mulligan) investigate allegations by actresses Rose McGowan, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ashley Judd against powerful film producer Harvey Weinstein.  As they investigate the claims, Kantor and Twohey uncover a history of abuse by Weinstein stretching back decades, against numerous women.

When allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein, co-founder and one time head of Miramax Films, with his brother Bob Weinstein, and later co-head of The Weinstein Company, first hit the headlines in late 2017 it had a seismic impact not just in Hollywood but around the world, helping to ignite the #MeToo movement against sexual abuse and harassment.  Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, who investigated and reported on the claims for The New York Times, detailed their investigation in the 2019 book She Said.  The world of journalism has always provided a rich source for filmmakers, and the film certainly echoes the classics of the genre, such as All the President's Men (1973) and Spotlight (2015).   However, the film moves away from the some of the cliches of boozy, chain-smoking, fast-talking men, barreling down corridors, shouting, instead the journalists are depicted as hard-working, dedicated, professionals who have full lives outside the newsroom, and we see both Kantor and Twohey at home with their respective young families, and Twohey's struggle with postpartum depression, having recently given birth.  Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan both give strong, empathic performances in the lead roles, and Samantha Morton and Jennifer Ehle give powerful performances as two of Weinstein's victims.  With such a recent, high profile and important case, filmmakers have to perform a very delicate balancing act, between creating a compelling piece of drama, while more importantly not exploiting, or sensationalising the horrific crimes.  The film mostly plays as a docudrama and, wisely, the decision is made not to centre Weinstein, who is only glimpsed once in the film, towards the end and only seen from behind amidst a huddle of people striding through the New York Times building.  Mike Houston provides Weinstein's voice on the phone rasping insults and threats to the journalists.  Weinstein's crimes are not dramatised.  Instead we have victims giving their accounts over images of empty hallways and dishevelled hotel rooms.    At one point a recording of voice recording of Weinstein harassing and threatening Ambra Gutierrez is played.  The film's main issue is that the story is so recent, and has been so well-covered, that most viewers will already be familiar with it all.  However, even while the story may be familiar, and the pacing is sometimes uneven, this is a compassionate and gripping film.  

Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan in She Said

Enduring Love

 Year of Release:  2004

Director:  Roger Michell

Screenplay:  Joe Penhall, based on the novel Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

Starring:  Daniel Craig, Rhys Ifans, Samantha Morton, Bill Nighy, Susan Lynch

Running Time:  100 minutes

Genre:  Drama, thriller

University professor and author Joe (Craig) is having a picnic in the Oxfordshire countryside with his partner Claire (Morton) when he becomes involved with an attempt to rescue a young boy from an out of control hot air balloon, alongside several other men.  The attempt fails, and one of the men dies, although the boy ultimately lands safely.  Joe suffers a great deal of guilt over the man's death.  Later he is contacted by Jed (Ifans) one of the other would-be rescuers.  Jed has become obsessed with Joe, and is convinced that Joe is in love with him.  Initially Joe tries to gently brush Jed off, but the stalking soon  intensifies to increasingly dangerous levels.

Based on a novel by acclaimed author Ian McEwan, who is probably best known for the 2001 novel Atonement, this is really in it's basic plot a conventional psycho-thriller about stalking, but it is dressed up as an arthouse drama.  It's all very elegant and moves at a stately pace, and there are many long conversations about guilt and the nature of love (Joe lectures and writes about love and his conviction that it doesn't really exist and is just a biological impulse).  It's only really until the end that it moves fully into thriller territory.  The film doesn't really work as a thriller because there is never any feeling of threat from Jed, at least until the end.  There is never any sense that Joe is scared of Jed.  He seems to regard him at first as an irritation, and later as an annoyance.  In fact there is the sense that Joe is more likely to turn violent against his stalker than the other way around.  It's very much a respectable, serious British film, that has the lurid elements that appeal to more mainstream audiences and the somber philosophising and arthouse elements to appeal to more serious minded viewers.  The film is very well acted, with Daniel Craig in particular turning from polite, mild-mannered professor into a seething self-destructive cauldron of barely repressed rage.  Rhys Ifans makes the stalker, Jed, disturbing but also weirdly sympathetic.  Samantha Morton is good but underused as sculptor Claire, Joe's increasingly put-upon partner.  The rest of the cast is full of familiar British actors including Bill Nighy, Susan Lynch, Helen McCrory, Andrew Lincoln (from The Walking Dead (2010-2021)), Anna Maxwell Martin, Corin Redgrave, and Daniel Craig's future James Bond co-star Ben Wishaw.  Not exciting or tense enough to work as a thriller, or particularly involving as a drama, the film feels stretched even at a fairly brisk running time, but the performances are fantastic, it all looks beautiful and, despite it's flaws, it is interesting enough to see how it all turns out.

Rhys Ifans and Daniel Craig in Enduring Love