Director: Steven Spielberg
Rating: 5/5
Amazon has definitely improved its offer of Prime films. The Post is one of excellent films available on Prime, and I really enjoyed watching it.
The film tackles the fight for freedom of the press in the US, during Ronald Reagan’s rule. Thus, the New York Times published secret documents and Reagan’s administration launched a legal assault in an attempt to ban them from publishing further documents and using the same source.
The Washington Post then got documents on US actions in Vietnam and other wrongdoings of the Reagan’s administration from the same source, and after a long and exhausting battle with members of the board, the editor-in-chief managed to obtain approval for proceeding with publishing documents. He argued that the Post must protect the freedom of the press, even if this means helping the New York Times. The film does gives lots of interesting arguments in favour of the freedom of the press, as well as mindsets of paper owner and board members.
However, this film is more than this, because it also tackles gender equality. Therefore, Kay Graham (Meryl Streep) is a woman owner of the newspaper who only gained control of the company after her husband died. Nevertheless, the papers have been in her family’s ownership for generations but her father gave the company to her husband because the job was not seen as suitable for women. Therefore, in this film we also see how gender identities are negotiated because we see Kay dealing with queries from her female friends about working at the time when not all women worked, but she also struggles to assert herself as the boss to misogynist board members…
Definitely worth watching for numerous reasons. Excellent story, acting, lightening and camera. The film has been made only last year but the ambient feels like from the past, just that the quality of acting is obviously from the present. A true delight!
Thank you for reading.