52 Films by Women Vol 7. 20. SHE SAID (Director: Maria Schrader)
One week on from its less-than-stellar opening in the United States ($2.2m three-day gross from 2,022 screens, 18-20 November), a consideration of the film She Said , adapted from Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor’s New York Times’ investigation by Rebecca Lenkiewicz and directed by Maria Schrader, is less of a review and more of a post-mortem. How did a drama about the disclosure of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s sexual predatory behaviour from the 1990s to the 2010s become something that mainstream audiences did not want to watch? Moreover, did Hollywood want it to fail? There is barely a Hollywood movie studio that hasn’t been touched by allegations of sexual discrimination and harassment – even Disney, or more accurately Pixar. The movie business in which participants trade on their looks and their reputation is a ripe playground for exploitative movie executives who can break careers as much as make them. Even before the scandal broke, Harvey Weinstein was as famous as a...