The Post (film)

The Post is a 2017 American historical political thriller film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg, and written by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer. It stars Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham, the first female publisher of a major American newspaper, and Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee, the executive editor of The Washington Post, with Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, David Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Carrie Coon, Alison Brie, and Matthew Rhys in supporting roles. Set in 1971, The Post depicts the true story of attempts by journalists at The Washington Post to publish the Pentagon Papers, classified documents regarding the 30-year involvement of the United States government in the Vietnam War.

Principal photography began in New York City in May 2017. The film premiered at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. on December 14, 2017, and went into limited release in the United States on December 22, 2017. It entered wide release on January 12, 2018, and grossed $179 million worldwide.

The film received positive reviews: critics praised the performances—particularly those of Streep, Hanks, and Odenkirk—and the film's references and allusions to the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Donald Trump. The Post was chosen by the National Board of Review as the best film of 2017 and was named as one of the top 10 films of the year by Time and the American Film Institute. The Post was nominated for Best Picture and Best Actress (for Streep) at the 90th Academy Awards, and received six nominations at the 75th Golden Globe Awards: Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Actress – Drama (for Streep), Best Actor – Drama (for Hanks), Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score.

Plot
In 1966, during the Vietnam War, State Department military analyst Daniel Ellsberg accompanies American troops in combat, documenting the U.S. military progress in the region for Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. On the flight home, McNamara privately tells Ellsberg and William Macomber that the Vietnam war is hopeless. Upon landing, he tells the press he has every confidence in the war effort. Ellsberg, overhearing this, becomes disillusioned. Years later, as a civilian military contractor working for the RAND Corporation, Ellsberg surreptitiously photocopies hundreds of classified reports documenting the country's decades-long involvement in the conflict in Vietnam, dating back to the Truman administration. Ellsberg then leaks these documents to The New York Times.

In 1971, newspaper heiress Katharine Graham tries to balance a busy social life with responsibilities as owner and publisher of The Washington Post, following the deaths of her husband, Phil Graham, and her father, Eugene Meyer. She nervously prepares for the newspaper's stock-market launch, a move to help financially stabilize the paper. Graham lacks journalistic experience and is frequently overruled by her domineering male advisers and editors, including editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee and board member Arthur Parsons.

Secretary McNamara, a long-time friend, forewarns Graham that The New York Times is publishing an unflattering story featuring him. The story, another example of the Times' ability to get scoops while The Post languishes, is an exposé of the government's long-running deception regarding the Vietnam War. However, a court injunction quickly halts the Times from publishing further articles on the subject.

Post assistant editor Ben Bagdikian tracks down former colleague Ellsberg as the source for the leak. Ellsberg provides him copies of the same material given to the Times. Hand-picked Post reporters pore over mounds of pages, searching for additional headline stories. The Post's attorneys advise against publishing the material, lest the Nixon administration files criminal charges against them. Graham confers with McNamara, Bradlee, and trusted Post chairman, Fritz Beebe, agonizing about publishing. Bradlee, a close friend of former President John F. Kennedy, tells Graham that their politician friends (including JFK, as shown in the documents) abused their friendships by lying to them; her friendship with McNamara must not factor in on whether to publish. The situation intensifies when the Posts lawyers discover that Bagdikian's source is the same as the Timess, possibly putting Graham in contempt of court and potentially destroying the newspaper and her family legacy. Alternately, if the legal challenges are overcome, the Post could emerge as a significant journalistic institution. Graham runs the story.

The White House retaliates. The Post and Times jointly appear before the Supreme Court to plead their First Amendment rights. Meanwhile, national newspapers pick up the story in solidarity with the Post and Times. On June 30, 1971, the court rules 6–3 in the newspapers' favor, vindicating Graham's decision. Shortly after, Nixon demands that the Post be barred from the White House. One year later, on June 17, 1972 (two weeks before the first anniversary of the court's ruling), security guard Frank Wills discovers a break-in in progress at the Watergate complex.

Cast

 * Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham
 * Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee
 * Sarah Paulson as Antoinette "Tony" Pinchot Bradlee
 * Bob Odenkirk as Ben Bagdikian
 * Tracy Letts as Fritz Beebe
 * Bradley Whitford as Arthur Parsons
 * Bruce Greenwood as Robert McNamara
 * Matthew Rhys as Daniel Ellsberg
 * Alison Brie as Lally Graham
 * Carrie Coon as Meg Greenfield
 * Jesse Plemons as Roger Clark
 * David Cross as Howard Simons
 * Michael Stuhlbarg as A. M. Rosenthal
 * Zach Woods as Anthony Essaye
 * David Costabile as Art Buchwald
 * Pat Healy as Philip L. Geyelin
 * John Rue as Gene Patterson
 * Rick Holmes as Murrey Marder
 * Philip Casnoff as Chalmers Roberts
 * Jessie Mueller as Judith Martin
 * Stark Sands as Donald E. Graham
 * Michael Cyril Creighton as Jake
 * Brent Langdon as Paul Ignatius
 * Gary Wilmes as Punch Sulzberger
 * Christopher Innvar as James L. Greenfield
 * James Riordan as Vice Admiral Joseph Francis Blouin
 * Kelly AuCoin as Assistant Attorney General Kevin Maroney
 * Tom Bair as William Rehnquist (voice)
 * Cotter Smith as William Macomber
 * Jennifer Dundas as Liz Hylton

Production
In October 2016, Amy Pascal won a bid for the rights to the screenplay The Post, written by Liz Hannah. In February 2017, Steven Spielberg had halted pre-production on The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara after a casting setback, and consequently opened his schedule to other potential films to direct. The following month, it was announced that Spielberg was in negotiations to direct and produce the film, with Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks in talks for the roles of Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee, respectively. The Post is the first time that Spielberg, Streep, and Hanks had all worked together on a film.

Spielberg read the screenplay and decided to direct the film as soon as possible, citing that "when I read the first draft of the script, this wasn't something that could wait three years or two years — this was a story I felt we needed to tell today." Spielberg worked on The Post while post-production work continued on the visual-effects-heavy Ready Player One, a situation familiar to him from concurrently producing, in the early 1990s, Jurassic Park and Schindler's List. Josh Singer was hired to re-write the screenplay ten weeks before filming.

As filming commenced, a number of New York Times figures who were associated with the Pentagon Papers case—among them James Greenfield, James Goodale, Allan M. Siegal, and Max Frankel—objected to the film's production due to the script's lack of emphasis on the Times' role in breaking the story. Goodale, who was at the time the Times's in-house counsel, later called the film "a good movie but bad history."

Filming
The film began principal photography in New York on May 30, 2017. On June 6, 2017, it was announced that the project, retitled The Papers, would also star Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, David Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson, Jesse Plemons, Matthew Rhys, Michael Stuhlbarg, Bradley Whitford, and Zach Woods. On August 25, 2017, the film's title reverted to The Post. Spielberg finished the final cut of the film on November 6, 2017, with the final sound mix also completed along with the musical score a week later, on November 13.

Costume design
Writing for The New York Times, Manohla Dargis indicated some high points in the costume design used in the film stating, "The costume designer Ann Roth subtly brightens Katharine, taking her from leaden gray to free-flowing gold."

Music
The score for the film was written by John Williams; it is his 28th collaboration with Spielberg. The music is a combination of traditional orchestral instrumentation and what Williams has called "very light, computerised electronic effects." Williams was originally attached to write the music for Spielberg's Ready Player One, but, because both films had similar post-production schedules, Williams chose to work on The Post, while Alan Silvestri composed for Ready Player One. Spielberg has said that The Post was a rare instance in which he went to the recording sessions "having not heard a note" in advance.

Recording began on October 30, 2017 in Los Angeles. The soundtrack was released digitally by Sony Classical Records on December 22, 2017 and in physical form on January 12, 2018.

Release
The Post premiered at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. on December 14, 2017. It began a limited theatrical release in the United States on December 22, 2017, and a wide release on January 12, 2018. The film is distributed internationally through Amblin Partners' distribution agreements with Universal Pictures, Reliance Entertainment, and Entertainment One Films. The film was released by Reliance in India. Tom Hanks expressed disinterest in appearing at a potential White House screening for President Donald Trump.

Marketing
The first official image from The Post was released on October 31, 2017. The trailer for The Post premiered exclusively on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, on November 7, 2017, and the film's poster, designed by BLT Communications, was released the next day. The first TV spot, titled "Uncover the Truth", was released on November 21, 2017.

Home media
The Post was released on Digital HD on April 3 and on Blu-ray/DVD April 17 by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Box office
The Post grossed $81.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $97.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $179.8 million, against a production budget of $50 million.

During The Post's limited opening weekend, December 22 to 24, it grossed $526,011 (and a total of $762,057 over the four-day Christmas weekend) from nine theaters. The following weekend, the film grossed $561,080 for a per-theater average of $62,342, one of the highest of 2017. The film had its wide release alongside the openings of The Commuter, Paddington 2 and Proud Mary, and was projected to gross around $20 million from 2,819 theaters over the weekend. It made $5.9 million on its first day and $18.6 million over the weekend (and a four-day MLK weekend total of $23.4 million), finishing second at the box office behind holdover Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. 66% of its opening weekend audience was over the age of 35. It dropped 37% the following weekend to $12.2 million, finishing 4th behind Jumanji and newcomers 12 Strong and Den of Thieves. It dropped to 5th in its third week of wide release, grossing $8.9 million.

Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 88% based on 363 reviews, with an average rating of 7.88/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The Post period setting belies its bitingly timely themes, brought compellingly to life by director Steven Spielberg and an outstanding ensemble cast." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 83 out of 100, based on 51 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported 63% of audience members gave the film a "definite recommend".

Alonso Duralde of TheWrap praised the acting and Spielberg's direction, though he noted the script was too on-the-nose at times, saying, "The Post passes the trickiest tests of a historical drama: it makes us understand that decisions validated by the lens of history were difficult ones to make in the moment, and it generates suspense over how all the pieces fell into place to make those decisions come to fruition." David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave the film an A– and wrote: "Nobody needs to be reminded that history tends to go in circles, but The Post is so vital because it captures the ecstasy of trying to break the chain and bend things towards justice; defending the fundamental tenets of the Constitution hasn't been this much fun since Hamilton."

Chris Nashawaty, writing for Entertainment Weekly, gave the film a positive review, but also compared it with previous journalism films such as All the President's Men stating, "Spielberg makes these crucial days in American history easy to follow. But if you look at The Post next to something like All the President's Men, you see the difference between having a story passively explained to you and actively helping to untangle it. That's a small quibble with an urgent and impeccably acted film. But it's also the difference between a very good movie and a great one."

Manohla Dargis of The New York Times awarded the film an NYT Critic's Pick with a strong acknowledgment of Spielberg as director saying, "Mostly, (the Post decision to publish) went down fast, a pace that Mr. Spielberg conveys with accelerated rhythms, flying feet, racing cameras and an enjoyably loose approach to the material. With his virtuosic, veteran crew, Mr. Spielberg paints the scene vividly and with daubs of beauty; most notably, he creates distinct visual realms for the story's two main overlapping, at times colliding worlds. Katharine reigns over one; at first she's all but entombed in her darkly lighted, wood-paneled empire. Ben rules the other, overseeing the talking and typing warriors of the glaring, noisily freewheeling newsroom".

Matt Bobkin, writing for Exclaim!, gave the film a 6 out of 10 score, saying the film "has all the makings of an awards season hit, but is too calculated to reflect today's ragged, tenuous sociopolitical climate."

Portrayal of The New York Times
The film downplays the original role that The New York Times had in breaking the Pentagon Papers and emphasizes The Washington Post's subsequent involvement. In an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, former New York Times associates James Greenfield, who coordinated the Pentagon Papers project as the Times foreign editor; James Goodale, theTimes general counsel at the time; and Max Frankel, the Times ' Washington bureau chief when the Papers were published, criticized the film's more minor portrayal of the paper. The New York Times had not only published the Pentagon Papers before The Washington Post, but had also set the stage for the major legal battle between the press and the United States government. The newspaper also won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its contributions.

The 1972 Pulitzer jury of journalists noted in their recommendation not only the significance of Daniel Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers leak, but also that of Times reporters Neil Sheehan, Hedrick Smith, Fox Butterfield and E. W. Kenworthy, and stated that their effort was "a combination of investigative reporting, analysis, research, and writing — all of which added to a distinctly meritorious public service, not only for readers of The Times but also for an entire nation." Goodale noted in an article for The Daily Beast that the Times published the Papers after Ellsberg had leaked them to Sheehan, and further stated that the film "creates a false impression that the Post was a major player in such publication. It's as though Hollywood had made a movie about the Times' triumphant role in Watergate." On PBS NewsHour, Goodale further said, "Although a producer has artistic license, I think it should be limited in a situation such as this, so that the public comes away with an understanding of what the true facts are in this case . . . And I think that if you're doing a movie now, when [President Donald] Trump is picking on the press for 'fake news', you want to be authentic. You don't want to be in any way fake."