A review of the new film “The Post”
Steven Spielberg is one of the most commercially and critically successful directors in the history of Hollywood. Meryle Streep and Tom Hamks are among the very finest actors of their generation but, until now, have never appeared in the same movie. So a work which brings together these three titans of the screen has to be cinematic gold and so it proves to be.
The year is 1971, the Vietnam War continues to devour lives, and someone has leaked the Pentagon Papers, a 7,000-page study of American policy on the conflict commissioned by then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The renowned “New York Times” accesses the Papers first but is blocked from further publication by the US Government headed by Richard Nixon. When a much smaller, more local newspaper, the “Washington Post”, gets its hands on the review, its owner Katherine ‘Kay’ Graham (Streep) has to decide whether to follow the urging of editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks) and risk the very existence of the paper by publication of the Pentagon’s secrets.
Every viewer will know what happened but Spielberg makes the story genuinely gripping, aided by superb performances by Streep and Hanks and a fine script by newcomer Liz Hannah and Josh Singer (who wrote “Spotlight”). The period is wonderfully created with all the smoking, drinking and misogyny and all the visions of old technology (dial phones, pay phones, chattering typewriters, vacuum tubes, and clunking hot metal type). But the film – which was produced quickly without special effects – is so topical for our times, in showing both the need for women to be recognised and respected and the requirement for the American media to stand up independently to a bullying president.
“The Post” is a companion piece to “All The President’s Men” (1976) since both films deal with the same newspaper and the same president. Indeed the final scene of the former is the first scene of the latter: the burglary at the Watergate offices. However, in 1976 nobody would have imagined that another American president would be so embroiled in nefarious activities and so hostile to the media. “The Post” is a wonderfully timely reminder that the price of freedom is indeed eternal vigilance.