Movie Review: "The Post"

"The Post": B.  Katharine Graham found herself in a pickle in 1971.  As owner-publisher of the Washington Post, she was faced with the choice of allowing her newspaper to publish top secret documents known as the Pentagon Papers, or killing the story against the wishes of her editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee, other Post veteran newsmen who had devoted immeasurable time working on the story, and her own attorneys.  At first blush this was a basic First Amendment/freedom of the press legal issue, but there was much more riding on Graham's choice behind the scenes.

Your enjoyment of The Post will be enhanced if you go into the theater knowing at least a little bit of the background of the Pentagon Papers.  True, director Steven Spielberg spends a portion of the first act setting the stage, but you nevertheless may want to do your own preliminary research.  Alternatively, you might read the remainder of this paragraph.  The Pentagon Papers were the creation of military advisor Daniel Ellsberg, who embedded with the US front line infantry in war-ravaged South Viet Nam in 1966.  His assessment of the war and the U.S. prospects for victory, as he related directly to President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on their return flight to the States, was abominably dismal.  The U.S. was, at best, in a stalemate position fighting the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong.  In fact, it would not be unfair to opine that America was actually losing the war, with little hope for ultimate victory.  But within minutes of the plane's landing, McNamara deceitfully informed the press that the U.S. was winning the war.  This falsehood was additionally perpetrated by Presidents Johnson and Nixon, neither of whom wanted to leave as their legacy being the first U.S. president to preside over a lost war.  In 1971, when Ellsberg could no longer remain silent as the deceit emanating from the White House continued year after year, he secretly photocopied reams of military analyses and strategies concerning Southeast Asia from the offices of his employer, Rand Company (a government contractor), and bestowed them upon the New York Times.

The Times planned to run a huge, multi-installment expose of the executive branch's lies and deceit concerning the war, based on the classified documents furnished to them by Ellsberg.  But after only three installments had been published, U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell successfully persuaded a federal court to grant an injunction prohibiting the Times from doing so.  This is where the Post comes in, eventually leading to Decision Time for Graham.

Shortly after the injunction against the Times was issued, the Washington Post, via the connection of assistant editor Ben Bagdikian with Ellsberg, got its hands on the same documents.  The film The Post is mostly about how that newspaper, with Graham at the helm, handled that once-in-a-blue-moon treasure trove of information.  

The inestimable Meryl Streep, the most decorated actress in the history of the cinema, plays Graham.  Although Graham was the titular head of the paper, she had at least two or three hurdles to overcome, not the least of which was her being a woman in an industry historically dominated by men.  There are several instances where the male honchos seem to consult and debate with each other as if Graham was not even in the room, notwithstanding her position. Everyone knew Graham ascended to her throne because of her husband's suicide.  Before he died, he hand-picked Bradlee (Tom Hanks) to run the company as editor-in-chief.  Bradley was the Post's prime minister to Graham's queen.

Another hurdle, like the proverbial Sword Of Damocles, was the IPO which the paper was counting on to capitalize its balance sheet.  [An IPO, aka initial public offering, is the process by which a private company makes its shares available to the public, including mega-buck institutional investors.]  The Post suffered from a kind of inferiority complex.  They saw themselves as a regional, albeit very good regional, paper, but playing second fiddle to the Times, a powerhouse national, if not international, news source.  Graham and company aspired to close the gap with the Times, and going public would give them financial wherewithal to make that dream a reality. The last thing the Post needed at a time when it was trying to attract millions of investment dollars was to have its senior officers indicted on charges ranging from disobeying a federal injunction to treason.

One of Graham's most interesting dilemmas was how to separate her close friendship with McNamara from her obligation to serve her company and its readers.  Other than a string of U.S. presidents dating back to Kennedy (if not Truman), no one was hit harder by the information brought to light in the Pentagon Papers than McNamara.  One of the best scenes occurs when Bradlee, who was Graham's direct report, accuses her of fence-sitting out of her concern for McNamara.  Graham then accuses Bradlee of going soft on some of his buddies, such as President Kennedy.  It does make one wonder how much personal relationships of news source executives get in the way of mission performance.

I found it interesting that Streep has been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, but the Academy chose not to nominate Hanks for Best Actor.  In the latter case, it probably makes little difference other than the personal recognition garnered by a nomination, as that category is considered a two horse race between Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour, reviewed here December 30, 2017; A-) and Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread).  As for Streep, I found her a little guilty of over-acting -- is it sacrilegious for a laymen such as I to say so?  Was Katharine Graham really that fidgety and lacking in self-confidence?  The women I have known in powerful corporate positions were anything but.  Still, if Meryl's research found Graham to be outwardly indecisive, almost to the point of nervous twitchiness, then I guess that's how Streep felt compelled to portray her. 

As I wrote in my December 15, 2015 review of Spotlight (B+), I have a weakness for movies which offer us a glimpse of behind-the-scenes action in a newspaper office.  While The Post is an entertaining movie, I cannot grant it a grade as high as Spotlight, which I feel is a superior film.  The scenes concentrating on the paper's legal issues, especially those scenes with a room full of in-house lawyers and outside counsel, were the most compelling part of the movie, more so than those showing how a newspaper goes about its business.  The Post is more on a par with 1976's All The President's Men, a fine film to which I gave a pre-blog B.  I sincerely hope my valuation does not send Mr. Spielberg's career southbound.