Timing, the old saying goes that it is everything. The movie The Post is about 40-years late for any shocking revelations. It's merely an attempted re-telling of the then largest leak in classified government documents. Oh yes, it was jaw-dropping stuff then as it was unthinkable by the average American citizen. In the last half-century belief in government has seriously decayed among Americans who now largely suspect everything is some shadowy rich man's game. Some things stay the same it would seem over a half-century later. Importantly, however, the free press was preserved legally. It would take the combined powers of unknown wealth in even more shadowy manipulations to control that press. I think we know that is what we're seeing now and this movie shows how we got there in many ways. It may be not so jaw-dropping now, but it still underscores what's at stake. That makes it still quite prescient now.
Taken in the context of the time, The McNamara report by Rand Corporation was an almost unbelievable bombshell of government lying and corruption never meant for anyone outside a select few to lay eyes on. The Washington Post (always a left/liberal paper) struggles just as they are going public as their rival, The New York Times, breaks the story of the decade while The Post leads with Trisha Nixon's wedding. The Post has to get in the game of serious investigative reporting or be marginalized...especially since The Post is the leading Washington DC paper. The Post gets the entire volumes of the so-called Pentagon Papers from Rand Corporation whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and goes The New York Times one huge one better (this as the gov't puts a lid on The Times further publishing of the papers). The magnitude of this might not be understood today, but at the time it was the most aggressive move by any newspaper to defend the freedom of the press in U.S. history. Destruction of The Washington Post loomed as well as multiple prison sentences by the reporting staff and female Post owner Kay Graham. What happens next is up to The Supreme Court and it makes history.
The Post tells the story outlined above quite well. It's straight and not even as it clumsily attempts to create the unbearable tension the principal owner and players of The Washington Post were under. It does get a small measure of the rampant chaos which is mostly what the viewer will rally around. A real power shift is beginning in the mire.
While the performances of Streep, Hanks, Odenkirk, and Greenwood are solid it's hard to invest in these characters. Perhaps that is how it should be as even Mrs. Graham's heroine isn't exactly easy to relate to personally by females of the day. No, it's the idea of freedom itself as a government check and balance personified here by freedom of the press. In that all of the cast and Spielberg nailed it. The ending, with the hint of a big unrelated breaking story just breaking, is a great twist. At times The Post moved slow, even boring, but in the end it delivered just like we still want the free press to return to today. We need a non-partisan free press to show us what is truly happening behind all the deception, smoke, and mirrors. Let freedom ring and see this film because even as late as this re-telling of a pivotal event is it is now more important than ever.
Taken in the context of the time, The McNamara report by Rand Corporation was an almost unbelievable bombshell of government lying and corruption never meant for anyone outside a select few to lay eyes on. The Washington Post (always a left/liberal paper) struggles just as they are going public as their rival, The New York Times, breaks the story of the decade while The Post leads with Trisha Nixon's wedding. The Post has to get in the game of serious investigative reporting or be marginalized...especially since The Post is the leading Washington DC paper. The Post gets the entire volumes of the so-called Pentagon Papers from Rand Corporation whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and goes The New York Times one huge one better (this as the gov't puts a lid on The Times further publishing of the papers). The magnitude of this might not be understood today, but at the time it was the most aggressive move by any newspaper to defend the freedom of the press in U.S. history. Destruction of The Washington Post loomed as well as multiple prison sentences by the reporting staff and female Post owner Kay Graham. What happens next is up to The Supreme Court and it makes history.
The Post tells the story outlined above quite well. It's straight and not even as it clumsily attempts to create the unbearable tension the principal owner and players of The Washington Post were under. It does get a small measure of the rampant chaos which is mostly what the viewer will rally around. A real power shift is beginning in the mire.
While the performances of Streep, Hanks, Odenkirk, and Greenwood are solid it's hard to invest in these characters. Perhaps that is how it should be as even Mrs. Graham's heroine isn't exactly easy to relate to personally by females of the day. No, it's the idea of freedom itself as a government check and balance personified here by freedom of the press. In that all of the cast and Spielberg nailed it. The ending, with the hint of a big unrelated breaking story just breaking, is a great twist. At times The Post moved slow, even boring, but in the end it delivered just like we still want the free press to return to today. We need a non-partisan free press to show us what is truly happening behind all the deception, smoke, and mirrors. Let freedom ring and see this film because even as late as this re-telling of a pivotal event is it is now more important than ever.