The Post

‘Steven Spielberg’s Vietnam-era thriller, which feels like a prequel to All the President’s Men (the final scene is in fact a nod to the opening of Alan J. Pakula’s film), centres on the revelations of the 1971 Pentagon Papers – a damning internal report that laid bare in detail how ‘the White House lied about the war’. (…) Katharine ‘Kay’ Graham (Streep), a widowed society lady and mother of four, is a close friend of Defence Secretary McNamara. However, she is also the owner and publisher of the ‘Washington Post’, whose editor-in-chief, Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), is determined to pursue the Pentagon Papers story despite an injunction against the ‘Times’. (…) Hanks has described The Post as a story ‘in which Katharine Graham became “Katharine Graham”’. Undoubtedly, Streep’s character forms the emotional linchpin at the heart of the drama. Time and again, Spielberg shows her as the only woman in the room, initially powerless. (…) Yet as the story unfolds, Graham finds her own voice – hesitant at first, but then increasingly determined and direct.” (Mark Kermode, The Guardian, Jan 2018)