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The Post

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Meryl Streep in The Post. (Times Media Films)
Meryl Streep in The Post. (Times Media Films)

What it's about:

A cover-up that spanned four U.S. Presidents pushed the country's first female newspaper publisher and a hard-driving editor to join an unprecedented battle between journalist and government. Inspired by true events.

What we thought:

When I studied to be a journalist, all the theory and examples were from newspapers. It was the ideal; the gold standard to aspire to. To get a by-line in black and white on the cover of a national daily paper was the pinnacle to strive for. Times may have moved on for me, but this is the textbook world that Steven Spielberg has set The Post in, with Tom Hanks as a hard news protagonist at its centre.

This Oscar nominated cinematic world is so enticing that I found myself wishing I was born earlier and that I was working for The Washington Post. I mean don’t get me wrong, it would be hard and messy to work in a white, male dominated space everyday but if I can muster half the strength of Meryl Streep’s Kay Graham then I’ll be able to make it. 

If Tom Hanks’ performance as Ben Bradlee is the beating heart of this film’s hard news world, then Streep’s Kay Graham is a heartstopper. There’s one scene that lasts for about 20 seconds where I literally held my breath all because of one sentence Kay utters in a nightgown that changes the course of modern American history. It was so truly incredible that even the loud mouth behind me, (who could not shut up throughout the film), decided to stop blabbering. 

That’s the reason that Streep is the most Oscar nominated actress of all time; because she keeps you hanging off her every word and movement. Even in the scenes in which her character struggles to get a word in edgeways - as another white man screams his opinions over her – we, as the audience, get what Kay is thinking.

This movie is more than just a Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks vessel though, it’s examination of the line between what’s fit to publish and what the government/those in power don’t want you to publish in the name of public safety. This has been a topic of discussion for decades all over the world and The Post’s use of the Pentagon Papers debacle is perfect, because in so doing, it’s more than theoretical, it’s a moment in history that showed the public the reasons America’s leaders fought a losing war in Vietnam. To me, this movie does everything right and was released at the perfect moment.

I don’t think I have to tell anyone to go watch a movie directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep but I will say that this is a movie more suited for people who like having something to think about than people who perhaps like watching cars explode as a muscly man slowly walks away. 




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