In 2017, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey from The New York Times revealed many allegations of sexual misconduct against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. He was accused of three decades of sexual harassment against actresses, female production assistants, temps, and other employees at Miramax and The Weinstein Company. These allegations fed into the #MeToo movement and eventually led to Weinstein being sentenced to 23 years in prison.

In 2019, the two journalists published a book entitled She Said, detailing all the different processes “they employed to investigate and uncover Weinstein’s sexual misconduct.” The book was later optioned and adapted into a film by Universal Pictures, which will be reminiscent of Spotlight (2015).

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Here’s what there is to know about the upcoming film so far.

She Said: The Plot

     Universal Pictures

The official synopsis of the Universal Pictures drama states:

Kazan’s Kantor is on a mission in the film to evaluate sexual harassment across all business sectors when she realizes that the show business is rampant with it. She partners with Twohey, and the two use all their know-how to help convince traumatized women to come forth and speak on the record and expose a system that protects abusers.

She Said: The Cast & Crew

The two main roles of Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey are portrayed by Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan, respectively. Kazan is known for her recent work in The Big Sick (2017) and Clickbait (2021). She has received high praise and award nominations for parts in Ruby Sparks (2012) and The Big Sick. Mulligan is still riding the praise received from her award-winning film Promising Young Woman (2021). She won an Independent Spirit Award, a Critics Choice Award, and was nominated for an Academy and Golden Globe Award.

The cast is rounded out with Patricia Clarkson, who recently garnered acclaim in Sharp Objects in 2018, as well as Andre Braugher (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, 2013-2021), Samantha Morton (The Walking Dead, 2019-2020), Tom Pelphrey (Mank, 2020), Adam Shapiro (Mank, 2020), Jennifer Ehle (Saint Maud, 2019), Peter Friedman (High Maintenance, 2016-2018) and Mike Houston (Orange Is the New Black, 2016-2019).

The film is helmed by Maria Schrader, a German actress, screenwriter, and director who directed the award-winning 2007 film Love Life and the 2020 Netflix miniseries Unorthodox. The latter won her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series. The screenplay for the film was written by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, a British playwright and screenwriter known for co-writing the 2018 film Colette with Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland.

The film is being produced by Jeremy Kleiner who produced the upcoming Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde starring Ana de Armas with Brad Pitt and Dede Gardner through their company Plan B Entertainment. The company has produced many films, including Beautiful Boy (2018), The King (2019), Minari (2020), and Father of the Bride (2022), as well as many upcoming projects like Women Talking (2022), Black Hole (TBA), and Paper Girls (2022).

Release Date

She Said will release in theaters this fall on November 18, 2022.

Can Hollywood Be Objective?

What might interest many about this project is Brad Pitt’s involvement in it through his production company he founded with Jennifer Aniston and Brad Grey in 2001. Pitt was known for threatening Weinstein after an incident involving then-fiancé Gwyneth Paltrow in which he told Weinstein, “If you ever make her feel uncomfortable again, I’ll kill you.” However, apart from that bare-minimum rescue, the actor never had any other issue working under Weinstein. He worked with him on 2009’s Inglourious Basterds and 2012’s Killing Them Softly. He even worked with him while married to Angelina Jolie, who herself spoke out against Weinstein and vowed never to work with him again. Weinstein looms large in this film, so the question of Pitt’s involvement overshadows many others. While not the point of the film, it most definitely will spark some debate as the press circuit continues.

Even though the industry is attempting to combat issues like these shown in the film left and right, it seems to keep hitting snags. While the film will showcase the #MeToo movement, it is left up in the air if it will touch on the Time’s Up movement that followed the former and faced a major overhaul in the face of scandals and artificial allegations. One wonders if Hollywood will be able to tackle this objectively and within any self-awareness at all. Audiences will just have to wait and see.