Film Review: The Post

It begins with a snub. A journalist is banned from attending a White House event because the President deemed coverage of his nearest and dearest to be unflattering, and writers debate if this is censorship. And it ends with a shift, as the relationship between the American government and the press irrevocably transforms, as papers must decide whether to sacrifice their cosy intimacies and favours to tell the truth about corruption, deceit and collusion.

No, this isn’t 2017, it’s 1971, and The Washington Post is about to expose the Pentagon Papers, which document the US government’s decades-long lies about the Vietnam War, resulting in the needless deaths of countless people.

Steven Spielberg’s adored themes are that of resilience and an easy brand of heroism, which are laid on heavily here. Evoking Spotlight and All The President’s Men, his expository film falls back on the classic devices of journalism movies: reporters drop things in shock at revelations shared over the phone; printing presses whirr as they produce The Big Story; and key players frequently gather in one place to loudly, gruffly agree with that truth and justice must prevail. The prescience of this battle is unmissable, and so the repeated and simplistic preaching feels unnecessarily didactic.

These themes are explored far more successfully in the drama’s subplot about The Washington Post’s publisher, Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep). Having taken over the position from her husband Philip after his suicide, Katherine is portrayed as capable, but riddled with self-doubt.

Constantly undermined by her misogynistic board members, she struggles to trust her gut when it comes to deciding whether or not to publish the Pentagon Papers. But Katherine also must acknowledge how her own close friendships with government officials affected her thinking. Streep brings a notable vulnerability and resolve to Graham, and her personal journey offers a compelling investigation of the story’s complexities. Elsewhere, Tom Hanks and Bob Odenkirk put in good performances as, respectively, The Washington Post’s editor Ben Bradlee and reporter Ben Bagdikian, but the film belongs to Streep. The lessons, however, are ours to act on.