You Do The Math

The 20th anniversary of DEEP RISING has already come and gone so it might not be too necessary to spend much time contemplating that particular milestone. More important things happened back in ‘98, after all. Maybe. It’s been a long time. But I saw this film back then so I may as well put some thought into it. Released at the very end of January (opening in eighth place; TITANIC was still going strong), DEEP RISING was an early film written and directed by Stephen Sommers who immediately after its box office failure went on to the blockbuster success of helming the first two MUMMY films with Brendan Fraser which were then followed by VAN HELSING in 2004, a film I had such a negative reaction to that immediately pledged to not see anything by him ever again. Considering his one wide release since was 2009’s G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA that hasn’t been a problem. But I lived in blissful ignorance of these future events back when I kinda sorta enjoyed DEEP RISING on opening weekend (after which I snuck into the Barbet Schroeder thriller DESPERATE MEASURES, which might be even more forgotten now) and, in fairness to Sommers, I also remember genuinely liking the version of THE ADVENTURES OF HUCK FINN that he directed for Disney in ’93. As for DEEP RISING, looking at it again on the Blu-ray release that pairs it with the 1994 Heinlein adaptation THE PUPPET MASTERS, it’s not bad, maybe just good enough to go perfectly fine with a night of pizza and beer. It pretty much does the job with enough promising touches that you wish maybe, just maybe, it could have been a little better. It’s no big deal that it isn’t but sometimes you can’t help but wonder.

In the middle of a storm in the South China Sea, John Finnegan (Treat Williams) along with crew members Joey Pantucchi (Kevin J. O’Connor) and Leila (Una Damon) is piloting his boat with a charter of mercenaries led by the mysterious Hanover (Wes Studi) to an unknown location. Meanwhile somewhere nearby, the mega-deluxe cruise liner the Argonautica is in the middle of its maiden voyage with owner Simon Canton (Anthony Heald) lording over the festivities which is quickly followed by passenger Trillian St. James (Famke Janssen) being caught red handed breaking into the ship’s vault and thrown into a makeshift brig. But just as the ship’s navigation and communication systems are mysteriously disabled and an unseen threat to the ship begins causing mass chaos and destruction. As Finnegan begins to realize that his own passengers are intent on attacking the Argonautica themselves to loot and destroy it, they arrive only to find it seemingly empty with no idea what has happened until creatures beyond any comprehension quickly begin to make their presence known and are preparing to attack.

It’s basically THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE meets BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE with the added presence of underwater ALIENS-type creatures on the attack and, I have to say, I’ve heard worse ideas. DEEP RISING is slick, glossy, loud and gory with just enough mayhem to keep things moving while still making me wish that there was a little more of a plot to it all to keep my interest. Of course, since it’s never really meant to be much more than a monster movie that probably sounds like I’m just looking for something to complain about. Which is fair enough. With a good amount of energy and snappy dialogue it’s more of an energetic theme park ride than a horror film but since it knows what it wants to be the tone is consistent, always knowing to have one more joke standing by to keep us off guard. Although I haven’t seen Sommers’ THE MUMMY ’99 in years my very distant recollection is that the two film’s plots are surprisingly similar, featuring two opposing groups forced to team up against an otherworldly force to stay alive, with DEEP RISING the gorier, R-rated version of the storyline even if it is mostly CGI gore, one nasty axe to the face notwithstanding. And it’s always aware of the film it’s trying to be with a healthy sense of humor that almost makes you forget that there isn’t quite enough going on from scene to scene.

Part of it is an odd structure, one that jumps into the action almost immediately while still taking way too long to get all the necessary pieces into place, a little too much wandering around the mysteriously empty boat during the first half before the various factions finally collide. The lengthy buildup means that Williams and Janssen, the alleged lead couple, don’t even meet until close to the halfway point and there’s not enough of a chance for their relationship to develop into much beyond the first glance. It’s a film that too often doesn’t realize which elements are working so it winds up focusing on the wrong things, particularly the amount of time spent on the mercenaries who are mostly all dull meatheads with some sort of Chinese-made superguns that fire endless rounds of ammunition which keeps the focus on them instead of the Howard Hawks-styled banter between the leads which gives the film much of its personality.

Played by Treat Williams, Finnegan is given a simple “Now what?” as his default catchphrase and his snarky impulsiveness is about all we ever know about him, part Han Solo and part Bogart in TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT which I guess means that Kevin J. O’Connor is playing Walter Brennan and Famke Janssen is supposed to be Lauren Bacall but the fact that I’m even making these comparisons really means that I’m trying to will this film to somehow be better or at least become the film that I can sense lingering underneath all the noise. That’s how much I want to like it with the personalities of the leads giving me hope but it never quite gets there, too often more interested in getting to the action and gunplay.

Just about the biggest plot thread in the film, the mystery of who’s responsible for the sabotage of the ship, is done away with in about a minute of screen time, so fast that one of the characters is forced to comment on the plot expediency but when the culprit offers the feeble excuse, “I misjudged the market!” for his financial reasoning it might be the best line in the film. Since almost all of the hundreds onboard the ship are killed off right away (they’re mostly rich people, so who cares) the main cast feels slightly underpopulated and maybe could have used an extra character or two to add to the disaster movie vibe, plus any film that so quickly tosses out the concept of Famke Janssen as cat burglar isn’t one that I can bring myself to completely endorse (this is as good a place as any to admit my weakness for Famke Janssen, just to state for the record). With a film like this, scares count as well as the laughs and even the gore effects but if the characters don’t stick in the brain the way they do with the best of them whether ALIEN or Carpenter’s THE THING, it’s all going to dissolve and DEEP RISING only gets part of the way there, coming up a little short when it comes to its own personality to help remember any highlights five minutes later, let alone twenty years.

If anything it’s playful, maybe as playful as a film about monsters that suck “all the fluids out of the body before excreting the skeletal remains” can be with Anthony Heald gravely informing us of all the horrific possibilities of what they can do since he’s clearly read up on them somewhere intoning, “They drink you,” in order to drive the point home. The basic look of the creatures which were created and designed by Rob Bottin isn’t bad, leading up to the reveal of the Alien Queen-like big monster, but twenty years on the film is a reminder of that point in the digital revolution still just a few years after JURASSIC PARK when there was still a lot clearly done on set instead of green screens as it’s done so often today so the film looks expensive—and with all that water, this doesn’t seem like it was a fun shoot—but the creature effects are mostly if not all done with CGI so they feel separate from the other elements, coming off as a little too cartoony and weightless so the actors never seem like they’re interacting with a creature actually in the room. A few times it even plays like there was scrambling in the editing room to cobble something together where the effects shots simply weren’t there and while the monster gore effects depicting the after effects of the “drinking” that we’re told about aren’t bad it’s hard for me to ever think of digital effects work like this as scary or disturbing. To the film’s credit, it never allows those effects to completely overwhelm everything else going on like they would in Sommers’ later films and the film at least tries to keep the focus on the human leads as much as possible even if the material is sometimes lacking. As an aside, the sound mix on the Blu-ray keeps the dialogue levels normal but the endless streams of gunfire are LOUD which means I keep having to turn the volume down so the film clearly doesn’t care that I’ve got neighbors. Not to mention that even when a film is meant to be a non-stop thrill ride about deadly creatures chasing you, sometimes the quiet moments help.

In addition to all the mayhem there’s the Jerry Goldsmith score which fortunately contains a little more flair than the standard action beats he was sometimes composing around this period, so even when it sounds familiar as chase music that we’ve heard before but it still raises the film up immeasurably. It’s all a reminder that there was almost no one better to almost make us think that the movie was actually as good as his music made it seem, so rich and evocative that it makes me think damn, this is what movie music is supposed to be. There aren’t too many composers like that these days. With dialogue that ranges from enjoyably clever to Treat Williams saying, “I have a very bad feeling about this,” DEEP RISING has a slickness and never gets too heavy, always moving relentlessly to the next scene and even though I keep wishing that it wouldn’t be so loud or stupid and even if the climax goes on way too long like way too many films do, more than not the action beats are just right. The banter between the characters who are left during the very last scene almost offers the impression that there was more during the film then there actually was but at least it’s fun and energetic which these things aren’t always. All that action and monster mayhem at least reminds me every film that tries it doesn’t necessarily pull it off. It could have used more personality but what’s there is at least something so to get close to the Hawksian lingo that the movie sometimes strives for, it’s almost good enough. That can help get you through those long nights of beer and pizza too, because the next film you put on with a nearly identical plot might not get anywhere near this close.

The cast helps too, with Treat Williams’ lightweight personality mixing perfectly with the tone and he gives things just the right arch sense of gravity as the monsters attack. Famke Janssen brings a sharp canniness to her role, playing it as if there isn’t much that doesn’t amuse her until she finds out what’s really going on but she’s not even too phased by that as long as there’s a chance to get away and in the moments she’s given with Williams the two play off each other just right. I still want to see her in a full movie where she plays a jewel thief, though. Kevin J. O’Connor, who went on to appear in a few other films for Sommers but more importantly in THERE WILL BE BLOOD and THE MASTER for Paul Thomas Anderson, clearly knows that he’s the character who gets to steal as many scenes as he can and he goes for it, bringing a full characterization to what’s merely supposed to be the comic relief. Anthony Heald as the ship’s owner takes his smarmy Dr. Chilton persona to the most extreme as he explains the intricacies of what these creatures are while the likable Una Damon, a ubiquitous presence during ’98 between this, DEEP IMPACT and THE TRUMAN SHOW, work so well with Williams and O’Connor that I wish she could stick around longer. As tiresome as all the mercenaries quickly become, Wes Studi as the leader gives an added gravity to things purely from the vibe that he obviously has no interest in the monster stuff or any jokey quips and is ready to stare down anyone who looks at him wrong. The other guys in his group include Cliff Curtis, Jason Flemyng and Djimon Hounsou in a minor role filmed before he starred in AMISTAD but released a month later.

DEEP RISING was released by Hollywood Pictures, the Disney division active at the time with a logo that now seems like a true relic of the 90s, sort of like how the film itself now feels like an artifact of the sort of movies that we seemingly got in theaters weekly back then. And I’m not entirely sure why I’m writing about this movie since the presence of Famke Janssen alone doesn’t justify it unless it’s that milestone of twenty years and thinking about where I was in life back then, how different I was. Maybe not that much. I guess I’m remembering it as part of a time when things seemed more carefree, whether they should have been or not, when I would see movies in the middle of the day in no rush to go anywhere else. I probably just assumed that was going to last forever, just like DEEP RISING has a story that instead of ending just sets itself up for the next chase. The idea of living in a monster movie that never ends doesn’t sound so bad as long as I’m one of the survivors, even if it is a monster movie that’s more interested in running from the monsters than in finding out anything about them. But in the end, I don’t think DEEP RISING is about anything more than running away from monsters towards more monsters, anyway. I guess it’s just a version of that movie which manages to stick in my brain more than others, a sweet spot of one the kind which has a lot of things that appeal to me but maybe falls just short. It’s still one that I sort of enjoy regardless. As for how much I’ve changed since then, maybe a movie with a giant underwater monster is the perfect way to avoid thinking about it. With luck you can forget about those things for a few seconds longer before being forced to return to the real world.

Played From The Inside

The reasons don’t matter. All you have is the pain. You feel it down to your bones and it never leaves you. Whatever connection that was once there is severed. Sometimes in the middle of the sadness you remember the laughter, emerging from a memory of one of those days in private moments that seemed to go on forever and you wish more than anything you could have that feeling back. The laughter of the one who went away.

The Mike Nichols film of HEARTBURN came out in late July 1986 and it’s not exactly what we think of as a summer movie anymore but it did open the same day as Stephen King’s MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE so I hope somebody did that double feature in a multiplex somewhere. Based on Nora Ephron’s novel and directly inspired by her marriage to Carl Bernstein and how the discovery of his affair while she was pregnant led to their divorce, maybe some of the details were altered for the fictional retelling in the book but they were certainly changed for the film; part of the divorce agreement stated, for one thing, that the character based on Bernstein in the film could not be presented as anything other than a loving father when it came to his children. Mike Nichols even served as legal signatory, so this was not just any dissolution of a marriage. This was one that got a movie, directed by someone who was already closely attached to the situation with Ephron writing the script herself, following up on co-writing SILKWOOD for Nichols a few years earlier. And one where, because of his direct connection to the people involved, it was made by someone working in a world that he knew intimately. More than most films, HEARTBURN is a product of the people who lived what happened. The pain is tangible and the jokes have a sting to them, even if it still feels like some blanks haven’t entirely been filled in.

Food writer Rachel Samstat (Meryl Streep) meets well-known political columnist Mark Forman (Jack Nicholson) at a wedding where they are instantly drawn to each other. In spite of her initial reluctance they soon marry so Rachel moves with him to Washington where they purchase a Georgetown townhouse, she quickly joins his circle of friends and becomes pregnant. All is well when the baby is born and Rachel doesn’t waste any time getting pregnant with their second child but it all shatters when she discovers Mark’s infidelity with a D.C. socialite. She leaves him immediately, heading back to New York, knowing he’ll follow soon enough and she needs to figure out whether she’s going to forgive him or if such a thing is even possible.

The upper class DNA of HEARTBURN is undeniable, offering a clear view of that New York-D.C. corridor of dinner parties and lunches with fellow media types and complaining about availability of bagels in Washington. An early moment of Streep and Nicholson kissing in front of Cinema I as a showing of MEPHISTO lets out captures that exhilaration of new love found in the perfect place in the world, a world where to have lunch with someone is to know them. To be there is to exist. HEARTBURN probably wouldn’t even be ranked in the top five of Mike Nichols films but it feels like more than any of them he understands every single person in it, down to the extras, that 80s New York which seems so distant now. Along with a preponderance of long takes and even a few cast members it’s hard not to think of the Woody Allen aesthetic from this period as well. A recitation at the wedding where the two leads meet can be heard with the speaker using the phrase ‘love never fades’ as Streep’s Rachel Samstat tears up to the sentiments while Nicholson’s Mark Forman sitting elsewhere is on the verge of falling asleep. The directing credit for Nichols appears over his zoned out expression and HEARTBURN is like a feature length rebuttal to the very idea that love doesn’t fade. Of course love fades. There are times when it has to, whether you like it or not. And no matter how much you cling to what was there, if it’s gone it’s gone.

What HEARTBURN has in addition to the performances is a laid back vibe with an array of clever and insightful dialogue which for a while displays no serious concerns beyond the various friends lounging about on vacation talking about nothing much at all or just the simple glory of Jack Nicholson explaining the plot of THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN’T DIE to Meryl Streep. It’s the sort of film that maybe I’d overrate slightly in memory just because of the people involved, remembering it as an amusing comedy of manners but maybe it isn’t quite substantial enough. It’s a lark of neurosis about two people, each with a marriage already behind them, old enough to be wary of any sign that they’ll fall for someone but just as open to the possibility and even when Rachel gets such a case of nerves that she can’t come out of her bedroom for her own wedding it’s nothing to get too upset over. The sight of them eating pizza late at night and singing songs to each other while celebrating her pregnancy gives a looseness to what we know are the good times with genuine chemistry between the two, a feeling of joy that gradually turns into a bitterly enjoyable exercise of a film, at times more a series of bits where actors play off each other in small moments which is still amusing in itself.

It’s a film about nitpicking whether it has to do with the inability to get their house finished or how in the middle of her therapy session when Rachel tearfully reveals Mark’s affair a few of the other members of the group argue over who brought the chopped liver. That’s life, in the middle of the most dramatic moments there’s always going to be that bickering until that’s just about all there is with nothing left to build on. Ephron wrote WHEN HARRY MET SALLY only a few years later and in some ways HEARTBURN is a proto-version of the broader themes in that film with one famous line that originated in the book of “Heartburn” turning up there instead of this film. Harry and Sally’s jobs matter even less than they do here; Rachel and Mark are both writers which has potential on the surface but never matters very much. The bitter aftertaste that grows is what we’re meant to pay attention to.

Stylistically, it feels like a midway point for Mike Nichols, featuring many scenes shot it long takes but without the coldness of the overly composed anamorphic framings from back during the days of THE GRADUATE and CARNAL KNOWEDGE. The view of D.C. is lightly satirical but it’s still part of the real world with a naturalistic flavor of spring brought to it by Director of Photography Nestor Almendros. More than anything each scene focuses on the actors in the frame, facing them dead on with no distancing technique as if to make us part of their fights but as close as the shots get the answers don’t become any more clear. By this point Nichols’ directorial style has become totally relaxed with an economy to the storytelling as well as the jokes so he never cuts unless absolutely necessary—a dinner party is seen in one shot circling around a table ending on a sight gag that shows how out of place Rachel is, a visual joke that gets me to laugh every time. And her growing realization of what might really be going on while getting her hair done is an expertly done moment, stretching out the denial of the inevitable truth as it becomes more terrifyingly clear by the second.

Nicholson’s Mark Forman tossing off a careless “To marriage” as a toast says it all in a blink, unexplained bitterness he’s holding onto that’s growing as he turns his complaints about missing socks into the excuse for where he is all the time. And it’s as if the way he’s using the nitpicking that his wife is such an expert on to fool her is the greatest betrayal of all. But even if there is a reason it still doesn’t matter no matter how much she tries to talk herself into her own feelings while searching for one. I still wish it was more about how the creative edge can get lost if you don’t tend to it and it’s hard not to wonder if even the pettiest of arguments between the real Ephron and Bernstein might have had more teeth to them than what we get here. Maybe because of Jack Nicholson, even if his star power is muted, it makes me imagine the film as something of a Mike Nichols version of THE SHINING, only in this one instead of the writer husband going crazy he just becomes mildly perturbed and uncommunicative while the wife, also a writer in this incarnation, comes at him ready to kill with a desk drawer filled with receipts—Streep emerging from the bathroom holding that drawer might be one of the single best shots involving the combat of two people in a room from the entire second half of Mike Nichols’ filmmaking career.

One other filmic connection might be how the prominent song “Coming Around Again” that serves as the basis for much of Carly Simon’s score appears in the official playlist that recently went with 70mm screenings of Paul Thomas Anderson’s PHANTOM THREAD, another film about a somewhat toxic relationship played largely in close-ups in which food plays a key role. For some people that song with its “Itsy Bitsy Spider” refrain found in the film’s most hopeful moments between Rachel and daughter Annie might be all they remember about HEARTBURN years after seeing it and it’s hard to keep from the song getting stuck in your head, just as the drops of water in that unfinished house representing their marriage and every ounce of tension in it keep dripping down from the leaky roof overhead, as if an incessant reminder that it’s all going to crash down whether you know it or not, whether you admit it or not.

Some of the greatest pleasures in the film are the most offhand like how Milos Forman, whose character hasn’t even been introduced at this point, is placed right in the middle of the shot as the wedding takes place, prominently chewing gum for all the world to see and whenever I see the movie again it’s for these moments more than anything. When Rachel’s therapy group is robbed by a mugger played in his first film by Kevin Spacey (apologies) who followed her out of the subway all the items are placed in a Balducci’s bag, definitely part of the world of lower Manhattan circa ’86 almost as if it’s the side details that really matter, not the foreground which wouldn’t be a problem if the center of it all were stronger. The Jewishness has been bled out (the book’s “Mark Feldman” becoming “Mark Forman” for starters) which makes it feel like we’re missing some of the specifics of the life, the marriage and all the food they eat. Mark Forman is always looking for something he can get a column out of, just as the HBO documentary about Ephron by her son Jacob Bernstein called EVERYTHING IS COPY was a phrase she would use that was passed down from her own mother. Based on HEARTBURN it’s clear that while it’s what she believes it’s also a matter of who she feels is entitled to tell the story.

The book contains recipes to go along with the details that Rachel Samstat reveals about her life, keeping those thoughts in mind almost in a Zen way to concentrate on while other things are falling apart, an element not quite as prominent in the film so I guess the Streep-Ephron combo had to wait for JULIE & JULIA to really focus on the food. It’s certainly there in the film with the crucial use of a key lime pie near the end which in the book played as more of an act of slapstick (in real life Ephron apparently poured a bottle of wine over Bernstein during a dinner at Ben Bradlee’s house) but in the film the moment comes off as totally numb as if the Novocain has permanently been applied. Even the camera angle used for much of the climactic dinner scene doesn’t give us the best vantage point on the action as if to say that the main character is already barely there anyway, not even trying anymore which makes sense but still isn’t entirely satisfying. The film avoids giving any concrete reason for Mark’s cheating with even some pretty good dialogue in the book along these lines going unused but that’s not what the film is about. It still means that there’s a hole where a fully fleshed out character for Nicholson could be but the pain feels genuine so it’s clear that the film believes he hasn’t earned the chance to give his side of the story. It’s not his film. All there is, in the end, is what there was. At a key moment Rachel has Mark tell the story of when she gave birth to their first child but when he finishes, she turns away from him as if to say that from that moment on those memories are for her alone. The film rarely goes beyond the surface but in fairness it knows that the surface is where we spend most of our time anyway. The reasons don’t matter. Only the possibilities that were destroyed.

One of the rare breed of films that didn’t provide Meryl Streep with an Oscar nomination (it did happen the following year for IRONWEED which reunited her with Nicholson) but the expert comic timing she displays combined with the inherent decency that she projects makes her the perfect match for the script’s point of view. Spending much of the film silently registering what people say without much of a response it becomes fascinating watching her reactions, the awareness on her face growing to the final awakening of how there’s nothing in this marriage left to fight for. Jack Nicholson was actually a last-minute replacement for Mandy Patinkin who was let go after a day of shooting (the first attempt at shooting THE TWO JAKES had just fallen apart so he was available and unlike, say, Dustin Hoffman no one would have mistaken him for Carl Bernstein) and the comic moments here are his best, particularly the intensity of his anger at the lack of work being done on the house. His own body language adds greatly to the performance as well, particularly when he shows up for the attempted reconciliation as if he’s a little boy who’s been found out but the rest of it is a little too vague, an unspoken annoyance covering up whatever else is going on. It’s a part that’s deliberately underwritten after the charm wears off so not much else comes through, he’s not playing Carl Bernstein but a sort of generic Washington “columnist” who apparently vacillates between politics and general observations of the world. We should all be lucky to have such a column. The supporting cast that backs them up is killer particularly Jeff Daniels as Rachel’s co-worker, clearly keeping quiet about a crush he seems to have on her and his gimme-a-break look during the wedding, sitting behind Maureen Stapleton with tears in her eyes, is one of my favorite things in the film. Steven Hill is also particularly effective, playing Rachel’s father as the epitome of facing loss and darkness in the world by simply moving forward (he gets maybe the best line too: “You want monogamy? Marry a swan.”). There’s also the likes of Stockard Channing, Richard Masur, Catherine O’Hara, Joanna Gleason, Mercedes Ruehl and Karen Akers as the much talked about Thelma Rice. The credited Natalie Stern as the Forman daughter Annie is actually the first screen appearance of Mamie Gummer, bringing an undeniable looseness to her scenes with the interest in her mother obviously genuine and not caring at all about whatever movie is taking place around them, the perfect reminder of the goodness that Mark Forman has chosen to ignore.

The bitter message of HEARTBURN may simply be a reminder to never get too happy. Because the pain isn’t worth it. In one scene they play a party game over dinner, describing themselves in just a few words as if to say that you only need to know the basics, just as only the gossip matters about a person. But when they’re close enough they do matter. In Richard Cohen’s book “She Made Me Laugh: My Friend Nora Ephron” he recalls that just after she died he received a phone call from Mike Nichols who had one question as he broke down: “What are we going to do now?” Sometimes you wonder that even when people haven’t died. If they’re gone, they’re gone. Even if there are reasons, there’s no point in saying them and those moments of lying in bed in the middle of the night watching an old horror film on TV eating spaghetti carbonara are nothing more than something only one of you remembers. Rachel keeps repeating how happy she is, only maybe with him it’s not about achieving happiness but about keeping that high going. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll forget the best times or at the very least accept that they were nothing more than part of a dream you were living in. In the end, that might be the only way to stay alive.

The Trick Is Not Minding

Kenneth Dahlberg’s neighbor’s wife really was kidnapped, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. She was Virginia Piper, wife of Harry Piper, chained to a tree for two nights until a million dollar ransom was paid by her husband who was then informed of her whereabouts. Most of the money was never recovered. This is an extremely abridged version of what happened which in ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN becomes a mere passing comment that Kenneth H. Dahlberg of Minnesota, sounding somewhat distressed, makes to Bob Woodward during that epic phone conversation about the check cashed by one of the Watergate burglars. It’s one of those tiny details that the film brushes past which makes me think of the bit later where Woodward doesn’t express surprise at what’s happening behind the closed doors he and Carl Bernstein are repeatedly knocking on, a scene no one ever remembers even if it’s maybe one of the few reaches for theme the film makes outside of its journalistic goals. The point, the moment seems to say, is that the surprise doesn’t matter. You just have to accept it and keep probing because the answers are there. And they will reveal themselves. The lights come on eventually.

ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN is a miracle of all the right elements coming together, a miracle from that holy cinematic year of 1976 when it was one of the Best Picture nominees to lose to ROCKY. Not only is it a film without a wasted frame there isn’t a moment which is not awash in total clarity and awareness in its pursuit of the story. Whatever the process was throughout the making of the film it not only somehow kept straight how much we needed to know, it laid bare the process of how the story that was being pursued became clear, fixated on the goal and like its two lead characters always aware of what the next question needed to be. Every moment is important, even the asides, even the blind alleys since they are a reminder that there are always going to be those blind alleys. In his review at the time Vincent Canby called Alan J. Pakula’s film “the thinking man’s JAWS” and it’s just as compulsively rewatchable. There isn’t a single dull moment which was certainly a concern at the time, way back when the fear was that everyone knew everything about Watergate already so what was the point of even making it. The film answered that question, presenting what happened with such skill and focus without stopping for a moment, the drive that is evident in its two lead characters becoming more clear with each scene, each time they sit back down at the typewriter.

Over 40 years after it was made there are still few other films that balance plot and character as intricately as ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (screenplay by William Goldman based on the book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward) as it follows reporters Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) of the Washington Post investigating the Watergate burglary and coming to understand very quickly just how deep the scandal goes. If you’re Steven Soderbergh you’re already watching it several times a year as indicated by his annual list posted every January of what he viewed the previous twelve months. If you’re anyone else you probably should be watching it several times a year. I’ve done it myself. Just about every minute of screentime propels things forward and yet it becomes a character piece anyway as we watch Woodward the straight arrow Republican (the news of which becomes a double take glance between him and his partner) and Bernstein the wiry ladies’ man, each of them determined in their own way to find this story together. Removing all conflict over how the two reporters are going to work together in about ten seconds flat it locates the characterizations in their actions as they obsessively scribble down those notes during phone calls, in the way they keep their eyes fixated on the subject not wanting to move for fear they’ll stop talking, never bothering to explain what drives them in speeches we don’t care about. The way they keep asking those questions even as somebody says they don’t want to talk anymore is all we need to know and the debates they have with each other lays out each man’s own basic approach to logically coming up with the answers, searching for where they can be found through each new deduction. Along with their sheer sense of focus it’s a film that never gets distracted by anything in its peripheral vision.

It’s an unrelentingly addictive film to watch, the way it jumps into things and refuses to stop while still maintaining a calm and collected tone all the way through. “The trick is not minding,” Hal Holbrook’s Deep Throat says during his first meeting with Woodward while telling a story about G. Gordon Liddy holding his hand over a candle at a party which is more or less a direct lift from LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and the cribbing of that line almost serves as a reminder of how, much as this comes from what happened, it still had to be figured out exactly what story was going to be told. Reading through the book is a reminder that the facts are the same, which they have to be, but it still needed a structure to provide clarity and the film finds it, keeping close to the journalistic roots and never taking its eyes off the big story. That particular Deep Throat line isn’t from the book or real life, “Follow the money” isn’t either, and actually much of his dialogue seems to have been invented for the film where what he has to say is considerably more clever. It’s not the only alteration without tampering with the reality of what happened so putting aside the history and politics it’s equally clear how much ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN is a near-perfect model of how to adapt a book, any book, even with the audacity of concluding the narrative at roughly the halfway point of the source material (not counting a few scenes from the second half which get moved up in the chronology) before the scandal really takes hold with the public but also in terms of how well the film parses out the sheer mountain of information that needs to be told.

There’s no love interest who comes in for a few scenes to argue about why the two men are so devoted to their work and any hints dropped that Bernstein is a ladies’ man aside those McDonald’s wrappers scattered around the table during their bickering lunches are more important than any outside life, only guys like Jack Warden and Martin Balsam playing Post editors Harry Rosenfeld and Howard Simons to bounce off of to remind them not to fuck things up. Each scene tells us something new whether it’s about the scandal or the sheer determination of these guys to figure out the right questions to ask and how to get in through the door, whether Woodward’s gamble of how to get the right name out of the bookkeeper or the way Bernstein gets part a secretary to get into a delayed appointment down in Florida (in a sequence apparently written by Carl Bernstein and Nora Ephron). The forward momentum helps the film move flawlessly from scene to scene even with what seems like some occasional dialogue that’s been dubbed in added after the fact to help scotch tape over a few transitions and clarify who certain people are but so what. As much as the film brushes past certain pieces of detail that it doesn’t have time for, considering how much information needs to be laid out so we even partly follow what’s going on it always comes up with the right answers.

But as much as every single one of the story decisions were correct it says something that in William Goldman's acceptance speech at the Oscars the first person he thanked was cinematographer Gordon Willis whose brilliant work transformed the film into something beyond a simple newspaper story with its shadows providing that low hanging cloud which always seems to hang over D.C. through the film. Willis wasn’t even nominated, passed over for the likes of the KING KONG remake and LOGAN’S RUN (I like both of those but come on…) but it’s impossible to imagine the film without those layers that Willis brought to it, providing that extra level of clarity to Woodward and Bernstein in the harsh light of the Washington Post trying to enter the darkness where all the answers are, Deep Throat waiting in that garage in the middle of the night with the answers he won’t fully reveal. With the camera pulling up from them going through those cards in the Library of Congress, tiny figures lost in the weeds, Willis and the darkness he brings to each moment provides the cagey emotion of the film to go with Pakula’s levelheaded cool providing a sense of unrelenting intellect with that 70s paranoia backed up by the low hum of the score by David Shire which seems directly attached to Woodward and Bernstein’s brainwaves to remind them that something’s going on, only they don’t know what, only that they have to keep following the leads.

Everybody here is working at their absolute best and the hushed tones that linger keep things unsettled just enough Pakula knows how much emotion to let seep in with the quiet anguish felt in Jane Alexander’s “If you guys could get John Mitchell, that would be beautiful.” His view of each scene serves as counterpoint to the determination of these guys and there’s a calm in the air in the way through each scene with the single take Dahlberg phone call one of the most deservedly famous of them, Redford prominent in the frame as the camera slowly moves in on him away from the background where the newsroom is converged around a TV with the breaking news, McGovern dropping Eagleton from the ticket which the movie doesn’t make clear until a later headline is spotted but it doesn’t matter as far as Woodward is concerned and we zoom in, everything else becomes irrelevant as the real story becomes clear. It’s one of the most subtly bravura scenes in a film that doesn’t waste a single moment, every shot matters, as it presents Woodward and Bernstein as two small figures in these massive Washington establishments, the reality of the world combined with a stylization in the way it’s presented, familiar DC landmarks always nearby as they would be in real life, forcing them to do this work literally in the shadows of the men they’re investigating. The style transforms this from simple docudrama almost into a form of deceptive realism, the camera racing alongside them in the newsroom and the legendary dolly shot as Woodward exits the parking garage in the middle of the night, unaware of where Deep Throat has gone to, leading into him in an early morning parking lot which is some ways doesn’t make logical sense—after all, has Woodward just been wandering the streets all night—but places him existentially alone with what he knows in the middle of this city, almost too afraid to face the truth but remaining absolutely determined. For all the 70s realism it still feels like a jolt to remember that the Washington Post newsroom was recreated on the studio lot in Burbank (art direction that won an Oscar, over the likes of LOGAN’S RUN) and there’s nothing in the film that shouts backlot with the exception of the rearscreen projection in the driving scenes, not that I care, and that particular aesthetic of the decade is fairly soothing to look at now anyway.

The president’s men of the title are mostly unseen, phantoms always lingering nearby, occasionally spotted on television like Ron Ziegler slamming the post could be said by someone today, pretty much word for word, except maybe he displays better vocabulary skills. All powerful at the time but, as Deep Throat reminds Woodward, not very bright guys. And mostly terrified, even down to Ken Clauson worried about whatever happened in Sally’s apartment getting out and jeopardizing his wife and family and dog and cat. Woodward and Bernstein know that something is there, it just takes time to figure out what and ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN takes its time with those debates in Bradlee’s office about if they’ve gotten the story, not to mention what exactly the story really is or if it’s too thin. As well as trying to decide if they’ve knocked on enough of those doors. All these years later, the world may be considerably different and the crimes taking place at the moment may go far beyond anything that happens here. Separate from the Watergate crimes, there may also be a problem with any movie that happens to star Dustin Hoffman. The main story of the film ends on a fuck up, with the real ending coming via the teletype epilogue, but it feels right since in the 70s fucking up was the way things often went anyway. Considering everything that had already happened by the early 70s the eventual victory was almost irrelevant as the mention of settlement negotiations to end the Vietnam War in an editorial meeting reminds us. Seeing those two guys back at work to get the story is what matters. Because you’re going to fuck up. The trick, however, is not minding. You have to become what those guys on the other side already are. Only maybe, hopefully, the good version. And if it means acquiring a taste for the jugular, so be it.

Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman become as one in playing Woodstein, as they’re dubbed, and it’s a couple of the best sheer movie star performances off all time as far as I’m concerned. It’s the best of each of their strengths, Redford’s innate laid back quality combined with the intensity the grows in Woodward making him click for me here more than any other film, zeroing in on the precise moments when Woodward finds the next piece of the puzzle while Hoffman’s jittery quality matches that perfectly, always looking for the next cigarette while walking ahead of his partner, calming down at just the right moments to get the answers that are needed and ready to fight but still willing to listen. They’re matched up against the all-powerful focus of Jason Robards in his Oscar winning performance as Ben Bradlee, always looking for the right answer to what he demands of people, never wanting anything but the right answer to what he asks, only wanting to be absolutely sure. Jack Warden, Martin Balsam and especially Hal Holbrook as Deep Throat are all phenomenal but there’s also the calm defiance of Jane Alexander (the film’s other acting nomination) as the bookkeeper, the smiling Robert Walden as Segretti, Lindsay Crouse, Stephen Collins, Ned Beatty, Polly Holliday, Valerie Curtin, Penny Fuller, John McMartin as the Post foreign editor calmly laying out the other way to look at things and the voice of John Randolph as John Mitchell.

The opening shot just after the 70s Warner logo fades away makes it clear—the typewriter is the weapon. The word is the bullet. And at the end, when Nixon is being sworn in, the typing continues, the only weapon they know. I miss working on a typewriter, without a doubt the most beautiful weapon that will ever be known to mankind, but that’s the way it goes. There’s anger out there right now. I feel it. It’s impossible to keep from thinking about it sometimes along with the simmering awareness over how certain people have tried to get away with such things. My sister, who once worked in the journalism world in D.C, lives in Bethesda and every time I visit I bring the disc of ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN to have with me, close enough to where it all takes place that I imagine it every time we pass a parking garage. I’m not sure how many times I’ve seen the film by now. And as I watch it now yet again I think about all the crimes that are happening right now that barely even need to take place behind closed doors anymore, practically out in the open and waiting for someone to do something about it. Anyway, a lot of the time lately I think we’re fucked. But I still hope not. Those newspapers matter even now and journalism matters, even if the journalists don’t always seem to realize that. The pulse of ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN is one that remains steady and calm as I watch it once again, trying to breathe through these awful days and remember that there’s always a hope, like an injection to somehow keep me going.

To Protect That Legacy

No matter how much time goes by, we still find ourselves trying to impress certain people. Even when they’re out of our lives, even when they’re already gone. Nora Ephron worked with both stars of THE POST over the years in addition to being friends with director Steven Spielberg, so the film’s dedication to her at the end can be easily explained, particularly since it involves a world she knew all too well. But I also wonder if among those other reasons Spielberg was paying tribute because he wanted to make a film Ephron would have approved of, not just shake her head condescendingly wondering why he was wasting his time with this or that, the sort of things that the New York literary elite would have brushed aside. I take some comfort in this possibility, the idea that even Steven Spielberg wants to be invited to the smart kids’ table. Or maybe he wants to do what he can to insure that other people will actually be sitting at that table in the future. After all, these days it’s looking a little iffy. THE POST is about this but it’s also about how the past matters, both in the big ways that shaped our lives which we need to remember as well as the little details that once made up pieces of the world but no longer exist. Those things meant something and were maybe more important than we ever paid attention to. And once we stop paying attention, that’s the ballgame. Of course, THE POST is also about moving beyond the past but more importantly it’s about saying Fuck You to certain people who want to do away with such ideals, which right now is an entirely warranted response as well. It could have even shouted that a little louder, as far as I’m concerned.

Just as Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep) is about to place her paper on the NYSE, classified documents that were part of a Pentagon Vietnam study smuggled out of the Rand Corporation by Defense Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys) appear in The New York Times. Post editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) is immediately envious, always looking for something to get in the paper and when the Times comes under injunction the chance to run more findings in the Post is too good to be true. So when the documents are secured from Ellsberg thanks to Post assistant editor Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk), Bradlee is determined to go to press immediately but when board members try to argue against it out of fear of what this could mean for the paper legally in addition to jeopardizing the impending IPO, Kay Graham has to decide which side she’s really going to be on and what sort of newspaper she wants this to be.

Katharine Graham wakes up with a jolt at the beginning of THE POST as if from a bad dream, just like many of us have been doing for the past few years now. Going from a nightmare into a nightmare. Graham doesn’t appear at all in the film of ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, of course, not counting the somewhat crass reference to her courtesy of John Mitchell and it’s a safe bet people viewing that film for the first time in recent years might not know the significance of this “Mrs. Graham” they’re talking about, the one Jason Robards’ Ben Bradlee doesn’t want a certain reference to in a family newspaper. William Goldman, interviewed in the book “The Craft of the Screenwriter”, confirmed that there was a scene featuring Graham in his screenplay at one point, with the role possibly to be played by Alexis Smith, but he was a little in the dark as to why it wasn’t used. Certainly the film was already long with a lot of dates and names to keep track of but it does sound like a good opportunity for a star cameo to put a spotlight on this particularly important figure who did play a role in the proceedings. So as it is ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, which plays in the film as about as perfect a screenplay as you can imagine, will in some ways always be thought of through certain images—Woodward & Bernstein walking through the newsroom, Deep Throat in that empty parking garage in the middle of the night, watching TV in Ben Bradlee’s office—specifically, images that involve the men who were in the middle of the story. Watching it in 2018 is a reminder that the women in the film are there to either be flirted with or get answers from, none of them with the power to actually do anything about Nixon. And suddenly it’s hard not to think about the key figure missing from that perfect film.

Written by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, and by now famously a spec script by Hannah that sold only days before the 2016 election, it’s very possible that over time THE POST will retreat to the shadow of that other film although if the worst thing you can say about something is “it’s not as good as ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN” then maybe that’s not so bad. It’s certainly much more of a character piece, focusing on Katharine Graham who as the film sees it is a woman who has always willingly been a mere observer being kept off to the side where the women in that world are supposed to remain but is now being forced into finally taking action. So while the importance of the Pentagon Papers is greater than simple McGuffin and the film doesn’t ignore the fault of previous administrations before Nixon came along, even if he is the big game, the focus of THE POST remains elsewhere, whether a reminder of the first amendment or the state of women’s liberation in 1971 as Katharine Graham’s awareness of what was around her finally began to take shape, always keeping the character beats up front.

The tight timeframe gives the story a focus and while Spielberg doesn’t direct this in the style of a 70s film, not like Fincher went full Pakula with ZODIAC, he uses his own camera-heavy approach to focus on the analog details that were everywhere at the time, down to the typewriters and rotary phones, the way Bob Odenkirk’s Ben Bagdikian begins to reach out to that pneumatic chute as the edited story is sent off to press or even when he fumbles for change at the pay phone when he leaves the office to make an important call (I like when he has to call back from another line and uses the pay phone furthest down in the row). It’s a film about the impulse of chasing the story just as ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN was about the cool, careful intellect of the process. In directing that film, Alan J. Pakula was always methodical in his framing even when things moved, whether those long dolly shots across the newsroom or the gradual zoom into Redford during the legendary Dahlberg phone call. Spielberg is a little more freewheeling, moving the camera everywhere at times, moving the actors into the shot together, following them as if he knows at certain times that they don’t want to be followed. Mixed in with the continually sharp dialogue there’s a looseness to even small moments of the sort that hasn’t been felt in any Spielberg film in decades, maybe not since one of the films he actually made in the 70s; there are a few beats where it almost feels like he decided not to go for another take with more precise timing, instead keeping in a little of the messiness that’s bound to happen against such a tight deadline. The details often feel tangible particularly in the Post newsroom even if there are times when the settings, both interior and exterior, almost have an overly shellacked feel (this also goes for Michael Stuhlbarg’s heavily made-up look as Abe Rosenthal) as if to give the appearance that the whole thing was shot on a studio lot, which it really wasn’t, with even the various newspapers handled by everyone throughout look a little too neatly pressed even if they are meant to be freshly printed.

Still, the speed helps even if Spielberg gets a little too broad with his staging at times such as the reporters peering into a box with the Pentagon Papers as if it contained the Sankara Stones. As seriously as he takes the issues he still can’t quite repress how much he responds to the boys’ adventure aspects of chasing the story so he clearly identifies with Bradlee and Bagdikian and Ellsberg and the interns from both the Times and the Post running through the streets; even when the Post intern arrives at the gates of the holy goddamn New York Times it’s hard not to think of the young Spielberg sneaking onto the Universal lot long ago. In comparison, the portrayal of Katharine Graham’s rarified world of parties and dinners at Art Buchwald’s house is kept at more of a distance even if her awakening is where the real conflict is, sprouting from the theoretical debate with Ben Bradlee over how they’re going to run the place which up until now has just been a casual series of debates, laughing over their own disagreements. That’s what the focus really is more than the subject of Vietnam and the papers (THE PAPERS was actually the title at one point; hard not to wish they could have come up with something that had a little more pizazz) which answers the question of why it’s not a film that focuses on The New York Times, which did after all publish them first. Some reports have the Times as not being too thrilled by all this, but I’m not so crazy about certain articles they’ve run lately so that doesn’t concern me. The point is to pay attention to the past as more than just photos hanging on a mantle, to remember the potential folly of playing it safe and ignoring what the real purpose of a place like this is. To make sure the people know.

When we’re in the offices of the Washington Post or going over the papers in Ben Bradlee’s townhouse with that rush of putting together the story in the air the film is at its best. Just as we saw at the start with Ellsberg beginning his report after witnessing combat up close, it’s the typewriter as weapon, even if some people type faster than others, and these scenes are good enough to overshadow the weaker points. As prologues without any of the main characters go at least the opening Vietnam sequence is short and to the point but (a) it’s a little extraneous, an attempt to shoehorn action into a talky piece (b) the use of “Green River” probably breaks some sort of cinematic law and (c) it was shot at the SUNY Purchase campus (not far from White Plains, where the Washington Post offices were filmed) and some things simply can’t be forgiven. And while Bradlee’s daughter selling lemonade to the other reporters gives us the exchange “What kind of lemonade?” “The one with the lemons in it.” as a reminder that sometimes the answer to what you’re searching for is pretty obvious, the cuteness still feels shoehorned in. Besides, Kay Graham’s granddaughter turns up in an earlier scene and it’s probably for the best to stop at only one cute kid in your Nixon movie. Graham’s big scene with her grown daughter Lally (Alison Brie, who for some reason I didn’t even recognize on my first viewing but she catches just the right east coast country club vibe) is also a little too obvious in its insistence of nobility but it’s still about a woman finally realizing the sort of person she’s supposed to be it’s also about the concept of grace and giving consideration to how we should approach such things in life. The willingness to being open to the challenge of what’s to come. To the very idea of thought.

So I get why some of these scenes are there even if it’s not how I would do it. There are still moments like the relaxed vibe of the early Bradlee-Graham breakfast and the way Spielberg holds this shot, making a few slight moves, for over three minutes which these days is the sort of directorial choice that deserves a medal. And not only does the second hour play beautifully at times as the debate of whether to go with the story escalates, all the activity showing in detail the actual physical process of putting together the paper and running it through the press is so lovingly shot that it almost qualifies as porn for anyone who cares about this tribute. And it is a tribute just as Graham asks Bradlee “What’s next?” at one point presumably as an Aaron Sorkin shoutout and though a TV is spotted playing Jules Dassin’s NIGHT AND THE CITY (Dassin was blacklisted, which seems mildly pertinent in a film involving Nixon) I can’t help but wish Spielberg had gone with a film directed by Sam Fuller, something he’s actually done before, and THE POST seems designed to run on a double bill with his great journalistic history lesson PARK ROW anyway. Or maybe SHOCK CORRIDOR would have been the correct parallel to draw for what it’s like covering Washington these days. There’s a lot to be cynical about when dealing in this world but it’s not in Spielberg’s wiring; he knows that the darkness in the world is there, he’s not that naïve, but actually presenting such things can force him to bend over backwards, going against the pureness of his cinematic nature. The score by the 85 year-old John Williams helps immeasurably with this balance, bringing to it a mixture of the sense of conspiracy from his Oliver Stone scores with the insistence of the deadline and the optimism that there might be some light to come out of all this. When the press run finally begins what he does there is glorious. Even a few of the source cues by Williams that can be heard on the soundtrack album feel like he’s inserted some amusing pastiche of easy listening tunes circa ’71 and more than that clumsy placement of Creedence Clearwater Revival at the start, he remembers what was in the air then which in itself provides an invaluable sense of texture to that part of history.

Because what is right is so clear to anyone watching it’s maybe not the most layered conflict Spielberg has ever dealt with but he has other fish to fry anyway and the film isn’t even looking to impugn anyone we don’t already know about—Bradley Whitford as Post board member “Arthur Parsons” is playing a composite, I imagine to protect the guilty and his overall condescension towards Graham is probably given one overly broad dismissive of women line of dialogue too many in this quasi-MAD MEN world but right now at a time when it seems to have been spiraling into outright hatred of women maybe it’s not really that much. The phrase “arguments on both sides” even turns up in one debate of whether or not to run the story, as if to remind us of just how repellent such a phrase sounds right now. I’m all for the message and because of the people involved this is the sort of film I was hoping might be my favorite of the year and, well, it’s pretty good. If anything, it’s a reminder of how Spielberg is one of the best at staging the simple art of people talking and how he stages them in relation to each other but it’s also a film meant to get us to cheer, a passion play designed for anyone who believes in what’s being stated so clearly, anyone appalled by what’s going on in the world now. We know that Kay Graham is going to do the right thing, we just need to hear her say it, we desperately need to hear those reasons and why this matters. And it’s not going to happen in the real world at the moment so at least it’ll happen here. The portrayal of Graham feels like a combination of elements of the real person, all the Streep tics that we can catalog and a little of Hillary for that matter which also feels right for the moment; a certain shot involving her near the end is probably a step too far but right now I’m willing to let it slide. Come to think of it, Katharine Graham is seen waking up twice in the film. The first time she’s uncertain of everything around her. The second time she’s ready. It’s a reminder that sleep isn’t always so easy these days but it’s also telling us that eventually we need to wake up.

It may be true these days that one of the things you're going to say about a Meryl Streep performance these days is how she gives what is very much a Meryl Streep performance but she still controls each scene here with the preciseness found in every moment as Graham navigates her world, considering the colleagues who may or may not be with her in this as her initial hesitation builds up into absolute certainty. Even down to the silent moments like when she quietly registers the news Abe Rosenthal is receiving about the injunction against the Times, she builds her performance as Graham into someone ready to make the decisions she does. Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee slightly takes a backseat to her which is perfectly fine and he’s clearly enjoying himself playing a guy who’s enjoying himself loving nothing more than chasing the story and how much he lives for this while bouncing off Street in their scenes together. He seems to love playing out scenes with all the actors in the film as he commands the room, working off their own rhythms and relaxing into the portrayal with the confidence that he’s the one in charge. Sarah Paulson as Bradlee’s wife gets her one big speech about how brave Kay is which seems deliberately placed as if she’s the heir apparent to Streep herself while Bob Odenkirk plays each moment like his entire life has been building up to this story so that simple “Yeah…” when Ellsberg asks him if they’re publishing the papers speaks volumes. Damn, Odenkirk is good in this. It’s a very strong cast, no surprise, with each of the major supporting players getting their moments including Bruce Greenwood as Robert McNamara, David Cross, Carrie Coon, Tracy Letts, Matthew Rhys, Bradley Whitford, Zach Woods and Jesse Plemons.

The past matters. The ghosts of stay with us as we learn from them, realize what we did wrong and, by a certain point, try to understand how much we need to improve. And maybe some sort of acceptance can come out of those regrets so we can move on. Because you can’t stay in the past, after all, no matter how much you want to. THE POST tries to remember this in its insistence that the truth never gets buried but although the necessary message gets across it never really probes deeper beyond the page one headlines, to use the parlance of the subgenre. The final moments even offer the reminder of the real life sequel still to come, essentially going with the ROGUE ONE ending to send things out on an anticipatory beat as the end credits roll and it’s kind of cool but still gimmicky enough that it dilutes the message a little. Although it also works as a reminder that the next big thing is coming, it always is. And maybe when it does something good may come of it and you’ll wind up impressing the right person if you’re ready. It’s a long shot, one that these days seems to be getting longer all the time. But I guess you never know.