She Said is worthy of the women whose stories it tells

A film that is at times enraging and terrifying and at times heartbreaking and gripping, it’s a worthy drama of the Weinstein investigation.

She Said is in cinemas now.

She Said is not a showy movie.

It doesn’t try to dazzle you with fast editing, flashy effects or even eye-popping photography. Its visual palette is de-saturated and most of the shots are people talking or people walking or people talking while walking.

It doesn’t need to be a circus act because the story is so gripping. It’s terrifying and enraging and triumphant and thorny and heartbreaking.

It’s pulsing with emotional and social depth, and given that She Said is a familiar story, it’s remarkable it can still be insightful and surprising.

Based on The New York Times’ investigation into sexual harassment, rape and assault by Harvey Weinstein, She Said is a spare and probing look at an industry with immense power imbalances.

And how women became grist for the mill, dehumanised and disposed of in a structure designed to prop up lascivious men and individual interests. It’s a system ruled by self-interest and cowardice and people like Weinstein knew exactly how to leverage it.

Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan play real-life journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey.

She Said fits in with the grand tradition of great journalism films – and belongs on the shelf next to All The President’s Men, Spotlight and The Post.

Directed by Maria Schrader and starring Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan as real-life investigative reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, She Said is a process story, a meticulous look at the level of work, dedication and guts it took to bring into the light Weinstein’s decades of exploitative, bullying and illegal acts.

It tracks their pursuit from the germ of the idea – a tip-off about Rose McGowan’s then-upcoming book – to the moment of publication, when it supercharged the MeToo movement.

It’s a film which portrays all the grunt work of investigative journalism, of all the unanswered phone calls, door-knocks, meeting with sources and persuading people to talk. There’s nothing glamorous about the gig, it really is just hitting those beats and chasing paper trails and witnesses.

She Said belongs in the pantheon of journalism movies including Spotlight and All The President’s Men.

Given that the subject of their investigation – Weinstein – operates in an industry that is all about sheen and glitz, it would have been all too tempting to “sex up” the film, but Schrader understands innately that there is nothing “sexy” about sexual harassment in the workplace.

What She Said does really well is that even though Kantor, Twohey and their editors doggedly put together the story, and it’s centred on their efforts, it heroes the women who shared their experiences.

Often with these dramas, the choice is to make journalism or the journalist the hero, and in no way does She Said diminish Kantor or Twohey’s work, but with this MeToo story, it knows that none of it would have happened if Weinstein’s victims didn’t choose to speak out.

That’s where the courage in She Said really lies – in the strength it took for Ashley Judd (who plays herself), Laura Madden, Rowena Chu and Zelda Perkins to use their voice to stop a predator.

Jennifer Ehle plays Laura Madden in She Said.

She Said gives such care and attention to these women; it emphasises the gravity of their experiences, the trauma they’ve carried for all these years, and the risks they took on in sharing their stories.

Those are not small things, and sometimes it’s forgotten in the tsunami of women who came forward after The New York Times published its story. But for that first wave of women, they were alone, up against a social system that frequently destroyed women who dared to talk.

She Said is worthy of their stories.

Rating: 4/5

She Said is in cinemas now