Review | She Said movie review: Zoe Kazan, Carey Mulligan play reporters who take down Harvey Weinstein in riveting biographical drama
- Women fight back in She Said, a story about the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal that thankfully features very little of the former Miramax boss
- Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan star as the two reporters who gathered evidence against the Hollywood titan and kick-started the #MeToo movement
 (1).JPG?itok=0BHk6odg&v=1665981271)
4.5/5 stars
She Said shows how two reporters from The New York Times forensically gathered sexual harassment evidence against Hollywood titan Harvey Weinstein, leading to a sea change in the workplace and the launch of the #MeToo movement. The film is both tense and ultimately moving.
Based on a book by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, played here by Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan respectively, it begins with a wide-eyed young girl in Ireland in 1992 finding her way onto a film set, before cutting to her running down a street, crying.
Stomach-churning stories like these, illustrating the former Miramax boss’ predatory behaviour, are the film’s very building blocks.
The story proper begins in 2016, with Twohey investigating allegations of sexual misconduct against Donald Trump before he was elected US president. “Why is sexual harassment so pervasive?” ponders editor Rebecca Corbett (Patricia Clarkson).
The eager Kantor takes the lead, investigating rumours about Weinstein hinted at by actress Rose McGowan on social media. Soon she is paired with Twohey as they speak to other actresses and former assistants who were abused, either emotionally or physically, by Weinstein.
As the reporters discover, settlements were made and non-disclosure agreements signed, meaning nobody will go on the record. Gradually, piece by piece, the story comes together.
Samantha Morton gives an utterly mesmerising turn as Zelda Perkins, an ex-Miramax employee who confronted Weinstein after he raped Rowena Chiu (Angela Yeoh), an assistant who worked out of Miramax’s Hong Kong office.
Likewise, Jennifer Ehle is very touching as the older version of the traumatised girl – Laura Madden – from the opening.
Queen orders that movie mogul Harvey Weinstein be stripped of CBE
Ashley Judd plays herself in a couple of scenes, as she comes to realise “as a woman and a Christian” she must speak out. Weinstein is largely a shadowy presence, a voice on the phone or glimpsed from afar. Rightly, the film gives him little agency.
She Said underscores how Weinstein’s behaviour was simply the tip of a very sordid iceberg. Or, as we are told, “this is about the system protecting abusers”. But it comes from a very human place.
Mulligan and Kazan, who previously collaborated on 2018’s Wildlife, do a crucial job in empathising with their characters; Twohey is a new mother and Kantor already has children. Their shared understanding of parenthood adds another dimension to a story about women fighting back.
