She Said (2022)

This powerful drama, ripped from the headlines about the Harvey Weinstein rape and sexual assault cases, is even more moving because we know it's true. Jack, Amy, and I loved it, and I, for one, got emotional several times. Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan are terrific playing the real life New York Times reporters Megan Twohey (TOO-ey) and Jodi Kantor, respectively, who investigated producer Weinstein, under the guidance of their editor Rebecca Corbett, played by Patricia Clarkson. They wrote a series of articles which earned them a Pulitzer. Ashley Judd plays herself in the movie and Gwyneth Paltrow and Judith Godrèche provide their own telephone voices. James Austin Johnson, known for his Saturday Night Live impressions of our 45th president, ably supplies the former guy's voice.

Director Maria Schrader keeps it tight from the screenplay by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, adapted from Kantor and Twohey's 2019 book, also called She Said. Film rights to the book were acquired the year before it was published. I appreciated that the movie showed that the reporters had lives, including supportive husbands.

Nicholas Britell's soundtrack is streamable on Apple Music and probably elsewhere.

Apparently this is the first movie to be shot in the actual New York Times building.

In 2020 Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years on prison for New York convictions, and is currently jailed in Los Angeles, awaiting trials for charges in California and the United Kingdom. Jurors have been instructed not to watch this movie, which is definitely slanted against the convict.

Mulligan was last blogged for Promising Young Woman, Kazan for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Clarkson for The Bookshop, Paltrow for Spider-Man: Homecoming, Godrèche for The Overnight, Schrader for directing the charming I'm Your Man, Lenkiewicz for co-writing Colette, and Britell for scoring Don't Look Up. Judd has dozens of credits and some of the ones I remember best are the mom in A Prayer for Owen Meany (1998), nurse Lexie in Where the Heart Is (2000), and Cole Porter's beard, er, wife in De-Lovely (2004). She currently spends a lot of time on humanitarian work benefitting women and girls worldwide.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences said they liked it as much as we did, averaging 87 and 91%. We rented it on iTunes/Apple TV on December 10.