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The Post 

Starring: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson

Director: Steven Spielberg

Genre: Biography Drama 

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 116 Mins

Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, John Williams … and the Pentagon Papers cover-up. Add them all together and it feels a little like cheating, because how could this combination not spell success in the headline?

It’s awards season now, so we may as well throw a couple of Oscars at this film. Although competition is tough this year, The Post certainly makes a timely case for itself, relevant and inspiring in its defense of the press.

The Post is a dramatisation of the publishing of the infamous Pentagon Papers by The Washington Post, and the people who were instrumental in unveiling decades of government lies concerning the Vietnam War.

Then-publisher, Katharine Graham, played by Meryl Streep, was faced with the dilemma of whether to risk invoking the judicial wrath of the Nixon administration by exposing the truth about the government’s actions to the public.

Even though The Post deals with the facts behind one of the biggest cover-ups in US history, it delves a lot deeper than that.

It would have been easy to produce a sensationalised, exaggerated, Hollywood-esque depiction rather than this traipse around various offices and dining rooms.

So it’s testament to the genius of Steven Spielberg and his technical mastery that its crucial moments still step up to the starting line with immense anticipation and grace. Not to mention the incredible forethought from writers Liz Hannah and Josh Singer to bring audiences a tempered and personal take on a controversy that shook the globe.

Meryl Streep plays Graham with all-too convincing anxiety, as a woman in power struggling to adjust to her role as publisher. Katharine Graham’s story arc is a master class in strategy, with Streep slyly outmaneuvering the chauvinistic bankers and politicians who dismiss her and her paper.

Tom Hanks stars as Ben Bradlee, editor and eminence grise at The Post. His idealism and hunger for the truth is infectious, dangerously spreading first to his colleagues and then to his audience.

Streep and Hanks’ scenes together remain largely unedited, which is all the more impressive considering the organic way they nail their relationship. There are times when the film overindulges in its own stardom, although it seems like it would be difficult not to with this cast.

Without revealing too much, one particular scene involving a conference phone call between several principal characters has become one of my favourite sequences in recent cinema history.

What’s even more pertinent in the narrative is the strong resonance to the modern era, and the attempts by current US president Donald Trump to attack news outlets that he deems ‘fake news’ or deliberately negative reporting, much in the style of Nixon back in the 70s.

As such, Spielberg is ruthless but fair with the story of The Post and the message it intends to convey, which makes it seem more like a movie for the current era and not the time it’s set in.

This is a film made at the perfect time by the perfect cast and crew, which means there’s little room to dislike anything. Any time the pace starts to slip, or the dialogue edges on pretension, someone from the film’s wealthy bank of talent comes to the rescue with a subtle and poignant save.

It serves as a reminder of the need for accountability from positions of power, and how we still look up to strong individuals with integrity, in particular journalists, who have the courage to publish the truth regardless of the consequences. After all, as Supreme Court Judge Hugo Black famously said ‘the press was to serve the governed, not the governors’.

Now showing in: Cineco, Seef II, Dana Cinemas, Wadi Al Sail, Mukta A2

Anna’s verdict: 4/5