The Post is a wonderfully acted, well-shot and well-lit display of prime Spielberg craftsmanship. It also is not very good.

The Post shares similarities and problems I had with Spielberg’s previous film, Bridge Of Spies. Both have the Hollywood 60s/70s aesthetic: meticulously created production design, smoke and desaturated film. Both are films about people doing the extraordinary in deeply political world events. The problem is Spielberg’s approach to the politics of it all, or rather, half-approach. There are two ways of making Bridge of Spies, or The Post: a well-crafted, loosely adapted good vs evil underdog story, or a politically and emotionally nuanced drama at a smaller but more intimate scale. The Post attempts to straddle both approaches and fails, because of a weak script.

Never forget the words of wisdom from one of Spielberg’s heroes, Akira Kurosawa:

“With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film.” 

There are fundamental problems I had with the script, namely any sense of conflict between and within characters, external to the Newsapers vs. Nixon conflict.

First and foremost, is the character of Kay Graham. Discovering her backstory was well-handled, and what a backstory it is: beloved-by-all husband committed suicide, leaving the company to her — she becomes the reluctant owner of the newspaper, lacking respect from the Old Boy’s network surrounding her. It’s easy to see why the film has been proclaimed a feminist film, but really, Wonder Woman is a better film in terms of Hollywood feminism. Why? This life has been imposed upon her. The newspaper business is not a passion, it is just a job. The Pentagon Papers are an annoyance, a problem that won’t go away. She has no feeling of duty to delivering the truth to the public until the end of the film, after being convinced by men like Bradlee, who actually care about doing the right thing. Despite what the film wanted me to believe, it didn't seem like Graham had much agency.

Graham’s memoir is the basis for the screenplay. The film twists itself to make this person of wealth and privilege an underdog at the centre of the action, even though all the important work is done by journalists beneath her. The interesting conflict that it spoken about but never shown, is the difficulty to publish the papers due to her relationship with people in the government. Again, this problem is said, but never shown or felt. This fascinating personal conundrum takes a backseat, when really the decision on whether or not to sacrifice all these relationships to publish the truth is far more captivating than continuous board meetings of “Do! Don’t! Do! Don’t!”

An example of the screenplay telling us the stakes, and convincing us of Graham's struggle, rather than seeing or feeling them, is an entirely redundant scene between Bradlee and his wife. She tells him, “To make this decision… To risk her fortune and the company that’s been her entire life… Well, I think that’s brave.” At this point, we should know these stakes. If not, then this is a clumsy, clumsy way of trying to impose a sense of drama upon an audience that somehow missed them.

Another problem, one that reared it’s head in Bridge Of Spies, is Spielberg dealing with politics. Spielberg made a great World War II film out of Saving Private Ryan, because he delved into the complicated choices and sacrifices people made when faced with pointless, cold violence. In retrospect, World War II is a perfect backdrop for Spielberg, because it can be made a fairly cut-and-dry good vs. evil context within which to explore character motivations. Post-WWII Berlin and the Vietnam War, are not the same ball game. Everyone is right and everyone is wrong; some push moral arguments, some push political ones, some push personal ones, and some pushed all three and more. I wished Spielberg added more pulp into Bridge Of Spies, and a little less American “Democracy always wins” politics. With The Post, I wished the screenplay had delved deeper into the moral politics of publishing the Papers, and toned down the excitement — more á la Spotlight. To further demonstrate the clumsy political handlings, The Film Stage noted:

“This is a film that talks up the rights of the public while only showing “the public” in the form of crowds of cartoonish protesting hippies. The famous chant “One, two, three, four, we don’t want your fucking war!” is changed to say “stinkin’ war,” because only grizzled journos cracking a story wide open get to be abrasive.”

On the less negative side, Streep and Kaminski shine. (Here is an interview with Kaminski on The Treatment, for your listening pleasure.) Streep becomes Graham, and Spielberg let’s her loose, focusing on small character details that Streep created. Perhaps her glowing, nuanced performance gave them a false confidence that it will make her a stronger character? Janusz Kaminski plays with smoky interiors and desaturated film to try and captures a time of ugly commercial American design. Most impressively, he manages to produce truly great long takes. In a time where long takes have entered the mainstream so prominently, from music videos to television to advertisements, it is good to see that seasoned veterans live by the rule that every type of shot exists as a tool for a filmmaker’s process.

I found this to be a frustrating film. Everything about it is excellently crafted — but it doesn’t matter how good you are at telling a story, if the story doesn’t hold up in the first place.