Movie Review—The Post

Theatrical release poster

by Peter J. O’Connell   

The Post. Released: Dec. 2017. Runtime: 116 mins. MPAA Rating: PG-13 for language and brief war violence.

Print journalism is an embattled phenomenon today. Digital devices and controversies about bias and “fake news” have taken away much of the readership and advertising that newspapers used to have. Two recent films, however, have reminded us if the vital role that a newspaper can play.

Spotlight, the 2015 Oscar winner, depicted how the Boston Globe at the turn of this century exposed the cover-up of child sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy. Now, The Post, one of the Oscars nominees for 2017, shows how in 1971 the country’s first female publisher of a major newspaper and a hard-driving editor entered an unprecedented battle between the press and the government to uncover deceptions about the Vietnam War.

This story of The Washington Post’s role in the Pentagon Papers affair is directed by Steven Spielberg and was written by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer. A 20^th Century Fox film, it begins by showing the company’s logo but not its usual fanfare. Instead, we hear sound effects of action in Vietnam, which leads into the movie’s first scene.

In that scene, set in late 1965, Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys), a military analyst for the State Department, observes things going badly for U.S. troops. On a flight home, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood) agrees with Ellsberg’s view that the war in Vietnam is hopeless. Yet upon landing in the U.S., McNamara buoyantly expresses an optimistic attitude about the war effort to the press and public.

Experiencing increasing disgust at this kind of mendacity, in 1971, Ellsberg, now working for a civilian military contractor, the RAND Corporation, secretly photocopies a trove of classified reports from the 1945-1967 period that document the policymaking process with regard to Vietnam and the progress—actually, lack of same—of the war there. He then leaks these documents, which come to be known as the Pentagon Papers, to The New York Times.

In the meantime, heiress Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep) has become owner and publisher of The Washington Post, following the deaths of her father and her husband. A wife, mother, and socialite for most of her life rather than a business executive, Graham finds running a major newspaper a difficult challenge, particularly in view of the prevailing sexism of the period. The movie indicates this aspect of the period well by having Graham as the only woman in a room full of men in dark suits and white shirts—or even waiting outside the room—or chatting after dinner about light matters with women while in a another room men discuss weightier topics. Things are particularly difficult for Graham in 1971 as the Post is about to become a publicly traded corporation rather than a privately held one. This pending deal is a delicate one that could be derailed if controversies or legal hassles engulf the paper.  

One of the men who sometimes “overrules” Graham is the paper’s assertive editor-in-chief, Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks). Bradlee is extremely desirous of catching up with The New York Times in terms of getting the “big stories.” Ellsberg has given the Times the big story of the Pentagon Papers, but when the Times begins to publish that story, a court injunction obtained by the Nixon administration halts the series.

At this point the movie takes on aspects of a thriller as Bradlee activates Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk), an assistant editor, to track down the source of the Pentagon Papers and obtain copies. Bagdikian succeeds in this assignment, and Post editors and reporters find themselves, in a somewhat humorous scene, on the floor trying to put together thousands of pages (page numbers have been cut off) in the proper order for possible publication, while making sure that no genuinely current national security material will be revealed.

Whether there will be publication or not depends on Graham’s yes or no. If legal action by the Nixon administration after publication should be successful, the Post could be badly harmed at a crucial juncture. But if the newspaper should prevail in a legal challenge, it would become a national institution, not just a Washington one. Lawyers advise against publication. Bradlee is for publication but knows that the difficult decision is Graham’s alone to make.

And she does. And it’s “yes.” That always exciting moment in movies about newspapers when the presses run and the paper hits the streets is particularly well done in The Post. The White House immediately strikes back. The Times and the Post are soon before the Supreme Court arguing for their First Amendment rights to publish the Pentagon Papers. As the case is argued, newspapers throughout the country publish the formerly secret documents. The Court rules for the press. Nixon then orders that the Post be banned from the White House.

And in a flash-forward to 1972, a security guard discovers a break-in in progress at Democratic Party offices in the Watergate complex. Thus, The Post ends as a kind of prequel to the classic movie about the value of newspapers, All the President’s Men (1976), which dealt with how Washington Post reporters did much to uncover the scandals that led to President Nixon’s resignation.

Steven Spielberg’s direction of the film is economical and “to the point,” nicely weaving together the political and legal themes with the woman’s empowerment theme, and the world-historical aspects with lighter ones. And he lets his stars do what Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks always have done so well—create convincing characters , whether based on actual persons or not. Hanks may not have quite that “certain something” that Jason Robards as Bradlee had in All the President’s Men, but he’s very good. Streep’s Kay Graham, like her Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady (2011) or the title character in Florence Foster Jenkins (2016), is a “grande dame” type but with a likeable as well as “grande” side. She has “spunk” as well as aplomb. (And she was sometimes called the “Iron Lady” by her colleagues.)

All in all, The Post is an effective reminder of the truth declared in the majority Supreme Court opinion in the Pentagon Papers case: “In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.”

“Footnotes” to the film: (1) The Post may give The Washington Post a bit too much credit and The New York Times not enough. It was, after all, the Times that began publication of the Pentagon Papers and was the sole winner of the Pulitzer Prize for doing so. Also, The Post may give the Nixon administration too much discredit. The Pentagon Papers dealt mostly with the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and not at all with the Nixon administration. There is no reason to believe that the Nixon administration in its response to publication of the Pentagon Papers was not acting out of sincere beliefs regarding national security. (2) Spotlight was written by Josh Singer, co-screenwriter of The Post. Ben Bradlee’s son was a reporter on the Boston Globe and is depicted in Spotlight. (3) Steven Spielberg developed The Post with great alacrity. Shooting and final cutting was done May-July of 2017, and the film was released at the end of the year.