Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan star in this gripping investigative journalism drama as New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, the pair who broke the Harvey Weinstein story. Unlike Bombshell, the first dramatic film to directly tackle the subject of sexual harassment in a media setting since #MeToo hit Hollywood in late 2017, this puts women in charge of the storytelling. She Said is directed by Maria Schrader, with a screenplay written by Rebecca Lenkiewicz adapted from the aforementioned journalists’ book, and has a nuanced grasp of the issues faced by women who were asked to go on record and bravely speak out against a system that protected abusers.  

Kazan and Mulligan turn in deeply persuasive performances as the reporters who spend much of their time knocking on doors, taking names, answering phones and getting very little sleep. Schrader crafts an ambience of paranoia and suspense, the hushed meetings with Hollywood executives and accountants inevitably drawing parallels with All The President’s Men. This film isn’t quite as impressively cinematic and does occasionally become repetitive, but it sensitively handles pivotal interviews with survivors, featuring truly affecting performances from Samantha Morton as Zelda Perkins and Jennifer Ehle as Laura Madden.

Lenkiewicz’s meticulously written screenplay furthers the emotional complexity by delicately indicating the responsibility each woman felt towards the younger generation through their relationships with their daughters and one another. At one point, Kazan’s Kantor joyfully tells her daughter she’s her ‘hero’ as she whisks her little sister away so that her mum can head to work.

The talented cast project quietly powerful as well as fiercely passionate moments, with Schrader carefully communicating the lasting impact of women gathering together to enact change through the dynamic between characters. She Said is a hugely moving account of a significant feminist turning point in history and very perceptively approaches its subject matter.

She Said screens at the London Film Festival on Saturday 15 & Sunday 16 October; in cinemas from Friday 25 November.