Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan in She Said: Naming Predators’ Names

As Harvey Weinstein sits in court in California on charges of rape and the former president Donald Trump, an alleged abuser, announces he will run again, the new movie, She Said, is a ripped-off-the-headlines thriller, telling the story of two investigative journalists who exposed the practice of abuse in the workplace. Of course, for Weinstein, co-founder of Miramax, that would be the movie business. You could say that New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor are the Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on this issue, as She Said shows their dedication to hearing victims’ accounts, and the exhausting, exhilarating process of getting them to go on record. No, this is not Watergate, but a system far more insidious in its established acceptance worldwide, undermining women and their dreams.

The She Said casting is exceptional: two of the women hurt by Weinstein are played by Samantha Morton and Jennifer Ehle. Great actresses, their characters meet with the reporters. Their careers broken, they have moved on, haunted by their anguished past. They go public at great risk. For many who have never experienced assault by a boss, it may be easy to dismiss their sensitivity, to say, get over it. But the movie makes it clear that powerful predators are enabled by others. After Rose McGowan and others came forward, 86 women finally accused Harvey Weinstein, enough to make you wonder how this family man and astute film professional with an amazing success story had any time for luring young, naïve women to his hotel room for work related meetings, where he insisted upon sexual favors while clad in a bathrobe or naked. An army of helpful assistants and lawyers, eyes wide shut, covered up the tracks, leading women
on, or paying them off for their silence, forcing them to sign impenetrable non-disclosure agreements.

Patricia Clarkson, always fine, excels as New York Times editor Rebecca Corbett, her neck adorned in layers of beads. Director Maria Shrader does a fine job of keeping the story moving briskly toward its bittersweet ending: justice, even as the powerful thrive. For balance and fairness, Weinstein is asked to respond to the story before publication: He wants to know
whether or not Gwyneth Paltrow is part of it.

It is helpful to note that She Said opens in a newsroom abuzz with the Trump Access Hollywood tape before moving on to the Weinstein unraveling. Just saying.