Search - She Said (Blu-Ray + DVD + Digital) on Blu-ray

B.J. W. (analogkid01) from CHICAGO, IL
Reviewed on 7/5/2025...

"She Said," Maria Schrader's 2022 film about the news reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein scandal, is a very dry movie.

There are a lot of dry movies, some good, some bad. The characteristics of a "dry" film include heavy reliance on dialogue, under-reliance on stunts or action sequences, a minimum of locations, and almost-imperceptible character arcs that may require multiple viewings to truly pick up on. George Clooney's "Good Night and Good Luck" would certainly fall into this category, and perhaps Spalding Gray's series of monologues.

The key to making a dry movie work, therefore, is finding *variety* wherever you can. Variations in shots/angles, variations in lengths of scenes, variations in emotional range from one scene to the next...anything to keep your audience from being too cognizant of the monotony of what's playing out on screen. A lot of dry movies concern ordinary people going to work every day and doing what they do, which can get boring fast.

This is the problem that "She Said" gets caught up in. Our intrepid reporters Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) and Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) interview woman after woman about Weinstein's assaults, but there is little variation from one interview scene to another. There's also no reason for the tension to escalate throughout the film, so instead it stagnates. The "ticking clock" factor is less about time than it is about assembling a critical mass of women who are willing to speak on the record about Weinstein. When they get it, they go to press and...that's that.

A series of title cards at the end inform us that the news article by Kantor & Twohey is the keystone that sets off the "me too" movement. It would've been better if the research and writing of the news article was the first act, and then the rest of the film about the movement that followed, and the repercussions outside of just Weinstein. The women even speculate about "how many other Weinsteins are there out there," and it would've been more effective to show the others who were charged and tried.

Grade: C+