Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

She Said

Journalism takes time and effort to get to the truth and provide ample opportunity for both sides to have their say. While some may obfuscate, the truth will come to light one way or the other and it takes the courage of one’s convictions to take on the mighty. She Said follows journalists Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) and Meagan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) as they look into disturbing allegations against Hollywood mega producer Harvey Weinstein.

The film lays out the case against Weinstein, detailing the horrific abuse, sexual and mental, he waged against young actors and female employees of Miramax (and later The Weinstein Company). Kantor and Twohey work for the New York Times and this film follows their attempts to uncover the truth while encouraging the victims to come forward, hoping that they can convince enough women to speak out that they can corroborate the claims. What they discover as they spend months turning over every leaf and stone is astonishing and what’s even more grotesque is the layers of silence and legal shenanigans that are put in place to keep the information from going public.

Like all of the great films about journalism, She Said is a slow burn thriller that explores the challenges of working in journalism where facts matter more than opinion and investigative reporters follow their leads until they can put together a firm and unimpeachable story. Films like All the President’s Men and Spotlight showcase how these events unfold, explaining it simply for audiences to digest. Ultimately, the film reveals hard truths about the powerful and their enablers and the struggles of the powerless to speak out and enable change.

Babylon

The public has always been fascinated by the glitz and glamor of Hollywood and are equally fascinated by gossip surrounding Hollywood. Director Damien Chazelle decided to focus on the debauchery of silent-era Hollywood and mix that with a tribute to the films Hollywood produced. Babylon is a film of mixed results where his adoration of Hollywood output is diametrically opposed to the tawdry incidents on display.

Margot Robbie plays a young woman trying to make it in Hollywood in 1926, a year prior to the advent of sound pictures. She makes a huge splash by sneaking in to a Hollywood party held at a remote mansion where a young immigrant (Diego Calva) instantly falls for her and enables her to make her grand entrance. As the film progresses, it follows three storylines. Robbie’s Nellie LaRoy catapults into stardom thanks to her flexibility as an actor; Calva’s Manny Torres goes from elephant wrangler and production assistant to production and spectacle; and Brad Pitt’s Jack Conrad rides a successful career through multiple marriages while his career becomes threatened by the advent of sound.

It’s interesting to watch the three characters and their rising and falling arcs, all of which relate in someway to the tide change coming over the industry as sound completely rewrites the script. The film does a great job showing how efficiency within the Hollywood of silent pictures is turned into chaos and stricture in the grips of the limitations sound recording places on filmmaking. The film comes alive in two sequences, one set on a remote desert motion picture lot where several films are being made simultaneously and another that takes place on a sound stage in Hollywood. While there are several other scenes than these, it’s the ones that focus on moviemaking or theatergoing that spark the interest of the audience while connective plotlines like the debauched Hollywood party, an attempt to wood money out of rich socialites, and a bizarre exploration of underground entertainment in Los Angeles all feel exploitative rather than necessary.