The Post - Review Thread

While his contemporary films don't hold the cinematic weight and spectacle of his older works, when Steven Spielberg makes a new film everyone in the industry stops and takes a look.  The master director still has a knack for large period piece productions, like with Lincoln in 2012, and still knows his way around directing a blockbuster with his upcoming film Ready Player One, but it is true that it appears the biggest and the best the filmmaker has to offer is behind us now.  He dominated the cinematic blockbuster for decades, though now that torch has passed to Christopher Nolan as Spielberg has settled into, aside from exceptions like The BFG and Ready Player One, dramas that eschew special effects and large set pieces for character-driven narrative and combat by dialogue.  This isn't to say that Spielberg has in any way lost his touch, racking up rave reviews for his work on his Oscar-nominated works Lincoln and Bridge of Spies.  But it is a different Spielberg, an older Spielberg, who doesn't seek to dazzle the audience with sheer spectacle (though his spectacle was always the best) anymore and is far more invested in letting his actors be the centerpieces in his dramas, leaning on them to drub up the sensation instead of dinosaurs, aliens, and whip-cracking adventurers.  In regards to this approach, you can't do much better than casting Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks as the leads, and the two are, to no one's surprise, fantastic at carrying the story and the weight of combatting the government for freedom of press and freedom of speech.  While it's true that when people reflect on Spielberg's works the effects and incredible storylines often come to mind far before the performances of the leads, but Spielberg has always been a great craftsman of story and knowing how to get his actors to convey it.  Sure, he leans on melodrama at times, but Spielberg is a massive budget director that has always exhibited an insistence on storytelling, and his move from blockbusters to talky dramas has been a seamless one as a result.  Having said that, The Post is a well made drama bolstered by the performances of its two leads, but ultimately falls short of being much more than an enjoyable couple of hours.  While The Post strikes the right cords in regards to telling its story with maturity and thoughtfulness, it's a movie that lacks the signature moments Spielberg is known for, and will sit comfortably in the middle tier of Spielberg's resume with other films that, while fine films, don't linger with the viewer long after they've viewed it.

The Post centers on Kay Graham (Meryl Streep), who owns the Washington Post, and Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), who oversees the actual contents of the paper and is constantly looking for ways to get out of the shadow of the New York Times.  That big break appears to happen as leaked documents about a study performed by Robert McNamara concerning his blunt assessment of the follies of the Vietnam War is sent to the press.  The Nixon administration orders that the New York Times be barred from reporting on the subject, and the Washington Post sees this as an opportunity to take a stand of solidarity with the New York Times and defend the multiple freedoms that Nixon is attempting to illegally stifle.  Kay, already embattled as a woman leading in a male-dominated industry, struggles with the decision to publish the documents, knowing full well that the ramifications from the White House, shareholders, and colleagues could be disastrous and possibly spell the end of the Washington Post altogether.  As the deadline to publish the story approaches, Kay and Ben are faced with the difficult decision of assessing whether or not releasing these documents is worth opposing the government over, and ultimately if that opposition is worth defending the civil liberties that Nixon is attempting to block.

The Post is a film that leans almost entirely on its cast, especially being the dialogue-heavy film that it is.  Fortunately the cast is excellent all around, and standouts like Bob Odenkirk and Bruce Greenwood really add to the subplots that their smaller roles entail.  Of course the heavy lifting is done by Streep and Hanks, both of whom are terrific, especially in the scenes they share together.  Streep plays Kay with a quiet confidence; never wavered by the powerful men around her barking in her ears but always mindful of the current climate.  Hanks is infectious as the gruff Ben Bradlee as he pushes for the documents to be published, and he represents an ideology that what's really best for the paper isn't playing it safe to appease shareholders but to supply the public with the information they deserve to know.  He and Kay are strong leaders in the industry despite the mounting pressure bearing down on them, and their cool confidence is easy to rally behind.  Still, it got tiresome seeing several characters throughout the film give monologues about the importance of what they're fighting for and getting teary eyed over it.  Spielberg knows the law of diminishing returns better than anyone, but must have forgotten it here.  Also another small criticism, but the look of the film never worked for me.  I'm assuming Spielberg and director of photography Janus Kaminski were trying to go for a 1970s look and feel to the visuals, but the boosting of the ISO to create noticeable noise in the image gave this period film an ugly, processed look that didn't stack up with the material onscreen.  I'm not a fan of boosting the ISO in general, but especially when it comes at the cost of highly visible grain, and The Post unfortunately embraces this fully. 

What holds The Post back from being anything special is that it mostly loses steam as it heads into its climax.  The beginning of the film almost plays more like a conspiratorial film from the 1970s as the documents are stolen and leaked and then the Washington Post's reactions as to how to handle the story.  We're introduced to Kay and the interesting power struggle she finds herself in, as well as Ben's crusade for the truth and the public's right to know it.  From there the film mostly plays out as expected, though there are a few minor twists scattered about.  The film does start to wear on tedium after awhile though, and while the audience should be wrought with anxious tension as Kay and Ben approach their deadline to publish the story or not, it felt like the most daring elements of the story are already behind us.  I don't doubt that this was a momentous moment for the press, but the story doesn't play out in anything beyond straightforward fashion before ultimately catching up to the events of Watergate.  The Post, while a well made film that's sure to please most of its patient viewers, just simply doesn't bring anything new to the investigative sub-genre.  It doesn't have the weight of All the President's Men or Spotlight, and aside from marveling at the performances by the talented cast there's nothing here to grasp for repeated viewings.  The theme though will gain a nice boost from audiences for echoing parallels between Donald Trump and his battles with the press, and it's hard not to reflect on how eerily similar the situations are.  It speaks to the larger issue of what's in the public's best interest to know and what benefits are there to the government withholding secrets.  The Post tackles this with great effect, but while the ideas swirling around the film are interesting ones ripe for a political thriller, it never dazzles the audience beyond the exceptional performances of its leads.  Spielberg will always be known as perhaps the greatest big budget storyteller that cinema has ever seen, and even at his age is still directing with incredible vigor and confidence, but his signature flair is absent in The Post, and as a result the film is a respectful retelling of the events that it inspired and not much more.

7/10