The Post

This is one of those films that is about as far removed from your basic action movie as you can get. In fact I wasn’t even going to go and see this film, because it’s really not my cup of tea, strictly speaking. However, it was an Awards contender, and I do quite like sitting on my sofa and saying ‘Yep, seen that’ when it comes up in whatever category it’s nominated in on my TV. That was the first reason I went to see this. The second (and more prominent) reason is that I heard that Tom Hanks didn’t want The Post screened at the White House because he (like most normal people in the world) hates Donald Trump. And if I could show my disdain for that pathetic excuse of a human being in even the smallest of ways, then I was going to see this film. So I went against convention, sat myself down in the cinema, and found that I was actually the youngest adult there, unlike with Ferdinand, where I was oldest adult without a child.

For those of you who don’t know, The Post takes place over the course of two weeks in 1971, focusing on The Washington Post and the editor-in-chief, Ben Bradlee (Hanks) and the newspaper heiress, Katharine ‘Kay’ Graham (Meryl Streep) as they try to publish the Pentagon Papers, which are classified documents about the thirty years of involvement of the US government in the Vietnam War, something that the American people weren’t aware of. Yes, this is a true story, so yes, this actually happened. The problem with trying to get these papers published is that they fear retribution from the current sitting President, Richard Nixon. Everyone knows the history of Nixon, and the Watergate scandal that forced him to resign. What I, as a Brit, wasn’t aware of was how Nixon attempted to oppress and silence the press, the FREE press. This might be a historical drama, but it is damning and telling in just how topical it is to come out at a time of such political upheaval and amoral disregard that is happening in Washington, D.C. right now, and thus poisoning, not only the United States of America, but the rest of the world, too.

There is not just a moral argument that is at play throughout The Post, either, but one circulating around the theme of sexism. The men who hold high positions within the newspaper believe that they should be the ones to call the shots, that they know what they are talking about, and, ultimately, are superior to Katharine. Yet no-one could have played Katharine as well as Streep does. She imbues the character with a level of underlying steel in the face of adversity, and even though she wavers at times, there is absolutely no doubt that when it comes to making the hard decisions, she will step up. Katharine is the reason why the press prevail over Nixon; not the men. She takes a hold of the moral argument over whether to bow to the President’s gerrymandering and obvious abuse of power, or to stand up and say ‘not today’. Do the American people need to know what has been hidden from them from all these years? Yes, definitely. Is this the right way to go about it? Maybe not, but The Washington Post is still a free press, so freedom of speech will still stand in the way of those who wish to become tyrants and dictators.

In a way, it is equal parts depressing and terrifying that history seems to be repeating itself, proving that we really don’t learn from our mistakes, because if we did, we never would have an incompetent, Russian-backed buffoon as a tenant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, trying his hardest to become a dictator like those who he panders to and puts up on a pedestal. What is happening right now makes The Post all the more noteworthy. This historical, Awards-contender drama is so relevant, and there is such good acting performed across the board, that you can’t help but be impressed by both the chutzpah and the gruelling determination of what happened over the course of those two weeks. The Post, intriguing enough, can also perhaps be watched before another film, that second one being Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House, which stars Liam Neeson. I never caught it in the cinema, unfortunately, but that biographical film takes place in 1972 and is about the events circulating Watergate. So saying, The Post, as good as it is on its own, may be elevated to an even greater standard if watched back-to-back with that film.