Near the end of _She Said_, Harvey Weinstein is
finally dragged kicking and screaming to the Times
headquarters to give a formal response to Kantor's
(Zoe Kazan) and Twohey's (Carey Mulligan) impending
article documenting his sexual assaults. In their
long-awaited moment of triumph -- after doors slammed
in their face, threatened with violence -- there is
no high-five or gloating, unlike in Aaron Sorkin's
overblown _Chicago Seven_. A consummate professional
to the end, Mulligan allows herself the faintest hint
of a smile, that extra spring to her steps, perhaps
the slightest swagger in the swerve of her hips as
she goes downstairs to meet her vanquished adversary.
You will not see a more beautifully nuance piece of
acting, or a sweeter girl-power moment, any time soon.

The story of Harvey Weinstein's crimes and deserved
downfall is so well-known the writer eschews the thriller
format. It is more accurately described as a heart-felt
historical drama. After many frustrating tries, empathetic
pleas to their sources, and long trips overseas especially
hard on their young families, the journalists overcome
the resistance of both victims and the Miramax boardroom
suits and get the corroboration needed to break the story.
It helps launch the "Me Too" movement.

I wish I had not read the lukewarm reviews and had
seen Maria Schrader's _She Said_ on the big screen.
In a problem-solving sort of way, her directing is
quietly scintillating. The screenplay is not the
greatest; it mostly consists of two people talking,
or someone walking and speaking into her cell phone.
Schrader makes these scenes distinct and vibrant,
staging them on busy Manhattan street corners, on highway
overpasses, and inside the New York Times headquarter
building bustling with hundreds of reporters. (The
film is set before COVID, and I am reminded of Maureen
Dowd's ode to noisy newspaper work places in a recent
column.) These scenes in public places gives an
indelible sense of time and place -- and visually
raises the question how the crimes has not come to light
sooner. Ambient sound is cleverly piped in, and the
editing meticulously mixes light and shadow, day and
night times. I don't remember _Spotlight_, which is
often cited as comparison, all that well, but that
film seems to be all four-people-in-a-room. The flip
side is that the budget of _She Said_ gets to the tens
of millions, and when it didn't make that back in
theaters it was unfairly cited as a failure.

I don't know if Schrader or writer Rebecca Lenkiewicz
came up with the idea of never showing Weinstein's
face, but it is a masterstroke; the attention goes
to the ace reporters and victims, instead of the
larger-than-life rogue type who inevitably sucks up
all the oxygen and is so strangely beloved in the
U.S. In so doing, it also dramatizes the invisible
but forbidding shield protecting the Miramax studio
cofounder. We hear his voice though, full of bluster,
bluffs, and threats. In contrast, Twohey and Kantor
stick to the facts, are infinitely patient and level-
headed in the teleconferences with him. The slow
blade penetrates the shield indeed.

Many reviews praise the "great acting" by the two
lead actresses. I don't think that's entirely
fair. Kazan is extremely competent, totally
committed to every scene, doing one emotion at a
time. Mulligan simply lives in a different dimension.

Director Maria Schrader herself is one of the most
incandescent screen presences of recent times
(_Rosenstrasse_, "Deutschland 83," and especially
_Aimee and Jaguar_). Mulligan is a dynamo on stage,
impossibly passionate and more than capable of huge
performances. For Twohey though, already a highly
decorated journalist when the film begins, they opt
for nuance and restraint. When we first meet her
she is suffering from postpartum depression. Mulligan
in the early scenes reminds me of Juliette Binoche's
recent work; even in the muckraking miniseries "The
Staircase," she seems to undergo transfiguration from
one moment to the next. (These actresses are Face
Dancers, to use another Frank Herbert phrase.) Twohey
is initially searching, unsure of herself, and Mulligan
is endlessly inventive with her expressions. Later,
returning to work, she is back in her element. This
is an elite professional accustomed to winning, and
Mulligan is so quietly confident strategizing the next
move or drawing out admissions from the Miramax suits.
For once, playing the senior partner, she also gets
to physically tower over her costar, Kazan.

_She Said_ was up against two other "sexual
harassment" fables, _Tar_ and _Women Talking_,
in the 2022 award season. One blanks out the
victim altogether, the other deals with nothing
but. Schrader's classically balanced film, which
ends with the highlighted names of the accusers
on a computer screen and has Ashley Judd playing
herself, sadly gets shut out. For professionals
like Schrader and and Mulligan, the satisfaction
of their excellence is no doubt reward enough.
But it probably doesn't hurt if I throw in my
deepest admiration.

(for A.)

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It should be "The Weinstein Company," not Miramax, which no longer had association with either of the Weinsteins by 2005. _She Said_ even has the
TWC logo, I think. To my surprise Miramax still seems to exist, if sort of
in name only. TWC itself was apparently dissolved after 2017. No loss
there -- hardly any great film ever came out of that company, unlike Miramax
in its early days.

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