What I Think of The Post

An old friend, some weeks ago, posed a question to me: What do I think of the movie “The Post?”

Well, spoiler alert, I love it.

For one thing, it has a trio of giants—it was directed by Steven Spielberg and stars both Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee and Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham. The movie does a decent job of telling the story of the Pentagon Papers, although it does fudge it a bit—the eventual Supreme Court decision to allow both “The Washington Post” and “New York Times” to publish information from a secret government history of the war in Vietnam was not a total victory for the free press because there were so many decisions issued.

True, the papers won 6-3, but those six judges who favored the papers had were too divided in their reasons to set clear precedent.

Still, the movie seems, to me, to be fairly true to the people, the times they lived in and the historic story. And if the story seems to resonate now, it’s not an accident—President Nixon made some long term political strategic decisions that set his party on the road (the highway to Hell) to where it is today.

Beyond whether the narrative is capital T true, I also laud the film for its feel and texture. Journalism is often represented badly in the movies. Romantic comedies, in particular, often present newspaper writers as leading glamorous, odd lives that correspond not all to the actual life of any correspondent.

For example, in case you wonder, neither “Sleepless in Seattle” nor “Runaway Bride” has any character who appears to actually be a newspaper journalist.

“The Post” is not a rom-com, and it gets the feel of a newspaper and news people right. I especially appreciated how it brought the media world of 1971 back to life—the clacking typewriters all over the newsroom, the copy editor using a pencil to mark up a story, and the many montages featuring a Linotype machine setting the words in hot metal for printing.

A lying Republican president attempts to use his powers to thwart and punish mainstream journalists, particularly those of “The New York Times” and “The Washington Post.” Yeah, the movie is set in 1971, but it sure does echo in 2018.

I also liked that the movie made Katharine Graham something of a feminist icon—because she was. The journalism world of 1971 was very masculine—indeed the whole power structure of society was. That hasn’t exactly changed since then, but sexism was more overt and obvious in 1971.

Anyway, I also just liked the movie as a movie. Hanks and Streep, why has it taken so long? They are America’s top actors at the top of their game in this movie—and it’s not just them. The characters that surround Bradley and Graham are written well and played by actors who make them interesting and complicated.

And the lemonade? It’s the kind with lemons in it.

Which is the best lemonade, unless you have vodka.

So, old friend, in short—“The Post” has the Joe seal of approval. Six of six QWERTY marks.