She Said

She Said

New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor break one of the most important stories in a generation — a story that helped launch the #MeToo movement and shattered decades of silence around the subject of sexual assault in Hollywood.

  • Released: 2022-11-17
  • Runtime: 129 minutes
  • Genre: Drama
  • Stars: Zoe Kazan, Carey Mulligan, Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, Jennifer Ehle, Samantha Morton, Angela Yeoh, Tom Pelphrey, Adam Shapiro, Maren Heary, Sean Cullen, Anastasia Barzee, Keilly McQuail, Hilary Greer, Tina WongLu, Nancy Ellen Shore, Wesley Holloway, Stephen Dexter, Ruby Thomas, Emma Clare O'Connor, Brad Neilley, Stephanie Heitman, Jason Hewitt, Sujata Eyrick, Justine Colan, Steven Bitterman, Liam Edwards, Norah Feliciano, Kareemeh Odeh, Anita Sabherwal, Kelly Rian Sanson, Lauren Yaffe, George Walsh, Dalya Knapp, Maren Lord, Elle Graham
  • Director: Maria Schrader
 Comments
  • goshamorrell - 11 January 2023
    SHE SAID is a quiet thriller that speaks many voices and volumes that need to be heard, It will be hard to watch SHE SAID, but It needs to be watched by every generation
    SHE SAID is a quiet thriller that speaks many voices and volumes that need to be heard, It will be hard to watch SHE SAID, but It needs to be watched by every generation and has to be addressed. In February 2020, a New York jury found Harvey Weinstein, the producer whose films had won dozens of Oscars, guilty of criminal sexual assault and rape. Now, two and a half years later, he is again on trial, in California, facing 11 further charges. Jurors in this trial received a particular instruction: The judge barred them from watching the trailer for "She Said." Others have largely eluded consequences. Debate continues about whether the movement has gone too far or not far enough. Already, some Hollywood industry leaders have observed a regression, if not an outright backlash. This is the contentious climate in which the film arrives. "She Said," directed by Maria Schrader from a script by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, is built solid and low to the ground, as if designed to withstand these shifts in cultural winds. "She Said" opens not in the newsroom or in one of the hotel suites that Weinstein preferred, but in rural Ireland in 1992 when a young woman encounters a film crew, which swiftly adopts her. But only seconds later she is shown running down a city street, panicked - a victim, it would seem, of assault. In the film, as in life, the reporters benefit from a lucky break or two - a source within the Weinstein Company (Zach Grenier), an admission by a Weinstein lawyer (Peter Friedman). But "She Said" largely stresses the unglamorous grind of an investigation: the phone calls, the doorstepping, the delicate moral suasion that reporters use to convince sources to trust them. Here is the argument Twohey uses with the women she speaks with: "I can't change what happened to you in the past, but together we may be able to use your experience to help protect other people." "She Said" details a triumph of journalistic sympathy and precision. What will become of the real-world movement this reporting kindled? The jury's still out.
  • dolive-578-564987 - 30 December 2022
    An important movie. And intriguing...
    It's no exaggeration that the story painstakingly brought to light by The New York Times and its remarkable reporters has changed the world. There is pre- and post-Weinstein revelations, with sexual abuse since - and quickly - revealed to be widespread. And there has been a tremendous reckoning for the abuse, with people in high places abruptly ousted from power, a phenomenon that continues.

    Why a movie, when we already know most of this life-altering story? Because only the movie can convey the tension for all parties that spanned the entire investigation. The fear that Harvey Weinstein, Miramax and Hollywood itself would rise and destroy or at least grievously harm Weinstein's victims to shut them up (they'd already tried to do so with hush money), as well as two reporters pretty much alone with all the information they had gleaned, and knowing the danger that put them in.

    I confess I write this as a mainstream newspaper columnist and magazine reporter, a 40 year veteran of journalism. Even though the mighty Times has your back, as with "Woodstein" and The Washington Post, there are moments when you feel alone and your life to be in jeopardy.

    And finally the greatest fear, "What if we get this wrong?" The journalist's chief responsibility, as that of the doctor, is "First, do no harm."

    This very good movie does not glamorize journalism. It is restrained in its sympathy for the victims. And it has a slow enough pace, though it so compelling it goes by quickly, that you can see the details of these truth-seekers work.

    A fine show, all around.