The Post

The Post (2017) is about the publication of the Pentagon Papers and a newspaper owner making the decision of her life. 1971. A classified government study of the Vietnam War is leaked. It shows that four successive presidents lied to the public. The New York Times begins publishing and is stopped by court order. The documents reach the Washington Post. The question: with the Times enjoined, publishing would put the Post in direct defiance of a court and could close the paper. The decision belongs to Katharine Graham, who took over after her husband's suicide. She is the only woman in that boardroom and nobody trusts her. That is the real subject: not a story, but a woman speaking against every man in the room. Spielberg made it extraordinarily fast. From the script arriving to release, shooting, editing and delivery took about nine months, while he was still finishing another film. Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks appear together for the first time. The last scene shows burglars entering the Watergate building, so the film ends where All the President's Men begins. The pressroom sections and the detail of hot metal typesetting are the loveliest thing in it. It runs 116 minutes. Good for: journalism films, history, and performance. Less good for: it is dialogue heavy, has no action, and states its message plainly.