The Post | Film Review

Hey Guys x

As you may or may not know, we're now into Oscar season, which is one of my favourite times of year.

I'm hoping to see as many nominated films as possible, more than I did last year. But in the UK the films come out so late that I might not get a chance, which would be a shame.

However, every nominated film that I see, I will review. I've already reviewed 'Three Billboards...' 'Get Out' and 'The Big Sick', and they're all under the tag 'Oscars 2018', so feel free to view them here!

But anyway, let me get on with this review!

This film is about a woman called Katharine Graham (played by Meryl Streep) who is the first female publisher of a newspaper, The Washington Post. When she and her team get a hold of a story that exposes government secrets regarding the Vietnam war, Katharine, her editor Ben Bradlee (played by Tom Hanks) and everyone else involved in her paper have to decide what's more important - their jobs and livelihoods, their reputations, the reputation of their paper, or exposing the government.

This a true story, and I feel like when you see the subject matter that it deals with, it would be impossible for it not to be true. I don't know too much about the Vietnam war and what the government were doing, but this screenplay was clearly written by someone who not only understands exactly what happened, but is also clearly very passionate about getting this story told.

Now I have to be honest, I didn't like the film. It was amazingly acted and directed (by Steven Spielberg!), so that wasn't the problem. It's probably just me, but I felt like you needed to have even a slight understanding and/or interest in this story (or about American politics in general) when seeing this film, and I didn't. And I still don't.

There was never a time for me when it felt like the stakes were high. There was a scene in court in the film (which shouldn't be too much of a spoiler) and I never for a second assumed that something really bad would happen as the outcome of that. And also, I never for a second believed (spoiler alert) that they wouldn't post the papers. I just thought, if they didn't, what would be the point of the film? I mean, yes it would be about their moral dilemma, but in the end it would have just amounted to nothing.

Another thing that annoyed me wasn't to do with the film at all. It was to do with the fact that this was a serious film, and yet 3/4 of the cinema were laughing like they were watching a comedy. Maybe the jokes flew over my head, but I didn't crack a smile once, and the laughter really took away from how serious the subject matter was - and I couldn't work out if this was intended or not.

So overall, I understand why the film was made, and I appreciate the story it was trying to tell (and what the real 'Washington Post' managed to achieve), I just wasn't a fan of the film.

Have you seen this? Do you disagree with me? Tell me in the comments!

Lou xx