Can ‘She Said’ Comment on Hollywood From Within Hollywood?

Once Harvey Weinstein’s crimes—and the larger picture of a system that allowed them to persist—became public, the film industry didn’t wait long to start addressing them on-screen, perhaps in an effort to distance itself from the infamous producer and his dark legacy. Kitty Green’s 2019 film The Assistant, produced by other legendary (but beloved) figures such as James Schamus, wasn’t a direct take on Weinstein, but it didn’t need to be. There was no mystery as to what the film really was about, while the lack of specificity also allowed it to speak to a culture of workplace toxicity and sexual harrasment that extends far beyond the reaches of Hollywood.

She Said is much more direct: Maria Schrader’s film, out on November 18, tells the true story of the New York Times reporters who brought Weinstein’s secrets out in the open. And yet it’s hard not to feel a certain tension between the film and its subject. How do you reconcile the fact that Weinstein’s reign of terror was enabled by the silence of many in Hollywood with that same industry’s impulse to make a film (in order to eventually turn a profit) about his demise? Could She Said be Hollywood’s attempt at redemption, a clearing of the air to finally close this dark chapter in its history? Is it a sufficient advocate for more transparency and basic justice? And even if it is, is that something worth praising, or is it far too little, and far too late?