Review: The Post

"We can't have an administration dictating to us our coverage just because they don't like what we print about them." So sayeth Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), editor-in-chief of The Washington Post, and those words serve as the beating heart of Steven Spielberg's The Post, an unabashed chest-thumper of a film that reminds viewers why journalism, decency and the questioning of authority are as vital today as they were during the time the film is set.

That time would be 1971, though the film begins five years earlier as State Department military analyst Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys) accompanies American troops in Vietnam to document the war's progress for Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood). Though Ellsberg expresses that the war is hopeless, McNamara spins it for the press and the American people saying that "military progress has exceeded expectations." Years later, as a civilian working for the Rand Corporation, Ellsberg decides to photocopy 7,000 pages of classified documents detailing the progress of the Vietnam War, dating as far back as the Truman administration. These documents would come to be known as The Pentagon Papers, and the fight to publish them despite repeated threats from the Nixon administration form the narrative of the film.

Bradlee is one of the main players and, if the name rings a bell for avid moviegoers, it is because Jason Robards won an Oscar portraying Bradlee in All the President's Men, still the benchmark for films about journalism and to which The Post functions as an unofficial prequel. Robards cut an indelibly formidable yet laconic figure, as if a cowboy were incarnated as newspaperman, but that breviloquent ease was commanding in the face of all the hustling and bustling. With Hanks, Bradlee is brisk and impatient, described as a pirate and plunderer, and always thirsting for a story that could establish his paper on equal footing with the much-respected New York Times and, by extension, burnish his reputation. Yet it is the Times that gets the scoop when Ellsberg decides to leak the documents and Bradlee, infuriated that he's been scooped, is even more resolved to stop reading the news and start reporting it.

In contrast to Bradlee's bristling fervour, there is the intelligent but unsure Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep), newspaper heiress who has found herself at the helm only because her husband committed suicide years earlier and now has to contend with boardrooms of men, who have the power to make or break her family's paper. Though she, more than any of her advisors, knows that "quality and profitability go hand in hand" - in other words, people buy the newspapers they trust the most and whose reporting is excellent and trustworthy - her uncertainty about her ability to lead allows her voice to be drowned out by the men on her team, whether it be Bradlee or advisors such as the blustering Arthur Parsons (Bradley Whitford) and the more sympathetic Fritz Beebe (Tracy Letts).

When the White House obtains a court injunction to halt the Times from publishing any more articles about the Pentagon Papers, Bradlee seizes upon the opportunity to report on what he recognises as vital documents in American history. Furthermore, as he argues to the reluctant Graham, they have to hold the administration accountable for their lies because who else will? She counters that she has no issues holding anyone, including her friend McNamara, accountable - but how can they do it when they won't even have a newspaper? Even if they somehow could, they could face time in prison, risking their careers and reputations, not to mention the existence of the Post itself. Yet, as Bradlee exhorts, "The only way to protect the right to publish is to publish."

There's a great deal to be savoured in The Post - Spielberg's masterful sense of pacing and storytelling; the expertise in which the film is pieced together from the production design to the costuming to the overlapping dialogue; the superlative work done by everyone in the supporting cast; and, of course, the performances of Hanks and Streep. The latter is especially brilliant - the scene in which she makes the fateful decision to publish and the subsequent moment where she finally finds her voice and uses it are nothing less than exhilarating, superbly demonstrating how beautifully Streep can gather and control momentum.

It's a huge credit to The Post that it's a seamless companion piece to All the President's Men, and a testament to All the President's Men that, despite being released 42 years ago, it remains as fresh and modern as ever and continues to be a rallying cry that, now more than ever, freedom of the press is essential and that excesses of power must be called out and admonished.

The Post

Directed by: Steven Spielberg

Written by: Liz Hannah, Josh Singer

Starring: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, Jesse Plemons, David Cross, Zach Woods