Review of The Post (2017) by Peter C — 02 Jan 2018

This events depicted in this movie are very interesting, and probably worth telling in a movie... but not this movie. Steven Spielberg has burped up an overly sentimental love letter to freedom of the press, but not with the least subtlety or trust in the audience to formulate their own feelings.

The two movies that most compare to this are "Spotlight," which is resembles in plot mechanics, and "All the President's Men," which is also a story about the role of a free press as watchdog of government power. The lesson is that a press able to publish government secrets (not directly threatening national security), is essential to democracy. But Alan Pakula's 1975 movie tells its story in a straightforward and exciting rendition of events, the characters concerning themselves with getting and publishing the story, rather than emoting endlessly about their role in the scheme of things. That's the problem with "The Post": Tom Hanks, as Ben Bradlee, and especially Meryl Streep, as Katherine Graham, just won't shut up about how gosh darn important their efforts are. There comes are point where Streep has a heart-to-heart with her daughter about her role as Publisher of the Post, following in the footsteps of her late, sainted father and husband. The problem with this scene is it's the umpteenth time Streep hits this theme, and it's long since gone cold. More of this brand of drudgery comes in the form of Streep and Hanks facing the unfortunate realization that their personal relationships with JFK and Robert McNamara, coziness to power, have compromised their ability to investigate and report the news. This is a real issue, but good grief can't a way be found to tell it without having sanctimonious characters endlessly blubbering about it?

Tom Hanks is good here, as usual, but unfortunately he is following in the footsteps of someone who was much better playing Ben Bradlee -- Jason Robards. Hanks labors under the same weight as all the actors in this story, which is Spielberg's unrelenting attempts to gin up drama beyond the what the facts of the story deserve. At the point that Bob Odenkirk, as reporter Ben Bagdikian, fumbles and drops his coins while making an urgent pay-phone call to a secretive source, you know you're in for some artificial excitement. Spielberg can tell a story better than this, like he did with "Catch Me If You Can," for instance. I think that in this case, he was trying too hard to match the loftiness of the stakes underlying this historic controversy with lofty drama that doesn't feel like it was earned in the storytelling.