The Post **** (2017, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood) – Movie Review

Director Steven Spielberg’s conscientious and involving if not quite inspired biographical historical drama tells the dynamite story of The Washington Post newspaper publisher Kay Graham and her gung-ho editor Ben Bradlee, who make the decision to risk everything by blowing the whistle on the Vietnam War cover-up that spanned four American Presidents. Publish and be damned, eh?, or publish and be crusading and famous.

The Post is the Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks Show, and these seasoned veterans eagerly grab their opportunities, Streep typically twitchy and Hanks typically gruff and interior, respectively overplaying and underplaying effectively. Their contrasting styles work very well together of course. Streep has the top billed main role – the film has the role women high on its agenda – but Hanks has hardly any less to do, maybe not even any fewer lines. It’s not quite such a showy role, but Hanks can still make it nice and showy.

The performances are the kind that you can happily nominate as Actress and Actor of the year for, but probably wouldn’t give the award to. After all, Streep and Hanks can’t win every year. They are good, very, very good, near mesmerising actually, but they have still given very slightly better performances in other very slightly better movies.

Meryl Streep plays The Washington Post newspaper publisher Kay Graham.

I’m going to speak up for the classy support turns – from Bob Odenkirk as intrepid reporter Ben Bagdikian, Tracy Letts as Streep’s wise but cautious adviser Fritz Beebe, Bradley Whitford as her slimy finance board member Arthur Parsons, Bruce Greenwood as Streep’s slimy politician friend Robert McNamara, Jesse Plemons as the chilly young lawyer Roger Clark, and Sarah Paulson as loyal Mrs Bradlee. They are all very, very good, and they have plenty to do, at least when Streep and Hanks let them get a look in.

Committed and honourable, and making a serious work again, Spielberg tells a still urgently relevant story, which, though set in 1971, has obvious parallels to today’s situation in the US, with a tough, battling President who is at loggerheads with the press. Spielberg obviously relishes the details of the 1971 era, spending a lot of time and energy – and presumably money – on getting the look of Washington, New York and especially the newspaper backgrounds looking just right. That definitely pays off in terms of credibility for the film and taking its account at face value.

Talking of urgently relevant, Spielberg gets an urgency on with his film-making. He is still young and alive as a film-maker after all these years.

The story just predates the Watergate scandal, and the film finishes in a very neat and satisfactory way as that story starts up. The trouble here is that that story has already been told in All the President’s Men, and that 1976 movie was an all-time great. Comparisons are odious, or odorous, but you can’t help but compare the two films, and Spielberg’s seems the lesser movie. Maybe that is only because his real-life story is not quite as exciting as the Watergate one, and there is a slight sense that we have been over this ground before in other films.

Nevertheless, Spielberg’s The Post movie is a good one, pretty much a must-see, I’d say, and worth seeing for maybe half a dozen reasons (Streep and Hanks for starters), which is about three or four more than most movies.

The screenplay by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, the cinematography by Janusz Kaminski, the score by John Williams and the Production Design by Rick Carter are all quite classy items.

The AFI voted it Movie of the Year.

Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 20 times, and has won it three times – for Kramer vs Kramer (1979), Sophie’s Choice (1982) and The Iron Lady (2011). Hanks has been nominated for the Academy Award six times, and has won it twice – for Philadelphia (1993) and Forrest Gump (1994).

Streep’s Oscar nomination for The Post is now her 21st. It is one of two nominations – the other as Best Motion Picture of the Year.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Tom Hanks has won two Oscars so far.