She Said-2022
Director Maria Schrader
Starring Zoe Kazan, Carey Mulligan
Scott’s Review #1,353
Reviewed April 7, 2023
Grade: B
Telling a highly relevant story that also happens to be topical, She Said (2022) is a film I champion people to see for its powerful message. The importance of its mere creation, with the added urgency of a female director being tied to it, is critical.
The #MeToo movement and uncovering sexual harassment in liberal-minded workplaces like Hollywood only make this project more relevant.
As dynamic as the story is, the overall package could have been a bit better in my evaluation of the encompassing project. Director Maria Schrader mostly goes the safe route, choosing to craft the message carefully, but hardly in a dark way.
The film, at times, feels almost wimpy and lacks some crucial elements that might have made it more impactful. The screenwriter is Rebecca Lenkiewicz, who deserves much credit but plays softball rather than hardball.
The film is good but not great, and unsurprisingly, it completely whiffed of any Academy Award nominations. There are a few transparent misses that leave She Said with a courageous yet unfulfilling feeling.
Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan star as New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, respectively, who together break one of the most important stories in a generation. This story helped propel the # MeToo movement.
The revelations and eventual conviction of multi-millionaire film production mogul Harvey Weinstein shattered decades of silence around the subject of sexual assault in Hollywood and altered American culture forever. This led to a needed examination of the industry.
Mulligan and Kazan are terrific, delivering strong, charismatic lead performances as female reporters with a vested interest in getting to the truth.
It’s tough to say who the lead is, since both characters’ personal lives and their sympathetic husbands run parallel.
I’m a bigger fan of Mulligan’s, and I’m still smarting from her Best Actress loss for Promising Young Woman in 2020. Hers is the more hardened of the two characters, and her one gritty scene in a local bar, when she angrily rebuffs the advances of a jock, is excellent.
Another impressive aspect of She Said is Ashley Judd’s appearance as herself. News junkies will recall that Judd was instrumental in coming forward and telling her story, even though she could have kept it hidden, as other victims did.
Finally, the jarring first sequence sets the tone quite well as disgraced former President Donald J. Trump is examined pre-2016 election, when sexual harassment allegations were hurled at him.
The point of this is to show that powerful men have historically gotten away with sexual abuse against women.
She Said tones down too considerably when it never shows Trump, Weinstein, or the pivotal actress Rose McGowan. Only their voices and the back of Weinstein’s head are used.
This sparks a peculiar feeling and a watered-down approach. It’s unclear why real video footage or actors couldn’t or wouldn’t be used, but it gives off a weird vibe.
It’s nice to see the legendary Patricia Clarkson in any film, but her role as news reporter Rebecca Corbett is limited and one-dimensional.
Finally, the climactic wrap-up, when finally one of Weinstein’s abused victims agrees to go public, feels anti-climactic and is better served for a Hallmark Movie of the Week moment.
Ouch!
The film is overall good, with the message being the most important takeaway. She Said might serve as a warm-up act to the much meatier, yet similarly themed, All the President’s Men from 1976, or the recent Bombshell from 2019.
Based on the vitality of the real-life events that She Said (2022) was created from, I expected something much more than I was served. It’s like trying for a grand slam home run and instead flying out to the shallow center field.
