As someone who is passionate about both journalism and the law, I knew I had to go see “The Post” as soon as I heard about it. The film follows the true story of the staff of the Washington Post as the Post and the New York Times are given the government documents known as the Pentagon Papers and what ensues thereafter.

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The Pentagon Papers were two large classified documents that detailed a government investigation of the war in Vietnam. Basically, the papers revealed that the government knew the war was a lost cause, but, to prevent embarrassment, a number of government officials, including several presidents, deceived the public. The Nixon administration ordered the Times and the Post from publishing, and in a case that was expedited to the U.S. Supreme Court, “NY Times v. U.S.,” the fate of the free press was decided.

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The film starts off in Vietnam and shortly after shows the beginning of the deception of the public. The next scene follows Daniel Ellsburg as he takes the Pentagon Papers and copies them so they can be distributed to the press.

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After this is when the lead characters meet: Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham, the publisher of the Washington Post, and Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee, executive editor of the Washington Post. Both actors did their characters justice and were able to portray the strong bond and trust that Graham and Bradlee had.

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Once the Times published their first story, the staff at the Post discussed it and tried to get leads on where they got their information. The Times published a second story, but then the Attorney General for the Nixon administration stopped the Times from publishing anymore. Soon thereafter, the Post got their hands on the documents and started working on a story.

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Throughout the next part of the film, Bradlee and his staff are at his house frantically going through the documents so they can craft a story. The lawyers are there and everyone is discussing whether or not to print the story. Graham gets the final say, which is a true test of how far she came as a leader since her husband’s death.

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After the story is published, the Attorney General’s office tells the Post they are not allowed to publish either. Soon thereafter, the Times and the Post are at the U.S. Supreme Court.

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The decision is delivered by way of a phone call to the newsroom. One of the staff members tells everyone else the decision and recites part of Justice Hugo Black’s official opinion of the court, including, “The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.”

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Although unexpected “The Post” gets into women’s rights. Graham is the first female publisher of a major American newspaper, and it is displayed several times throughout the film that Graham is intruding on a boy’s club. When discussing finances, the men act like Graham is not able to make a sound decision and mutter about how her father gave her husband the business. After Graham’s husband’s death, she takes over as the publisher of the Post.

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On the night the Post must decide whether or not to print their story, Graham is talking with her daughter as they are putting the grandchildren to bed. Graham explains that it has been hard since her husband passed and that she had never had a job before having to take over the Post. She also explains that it was just expected that her husband would carry on the business and that women were not expected to do such things. This part of the story showed how much had changed from when Graham was young to that point in time (1971), and also displayed how far the culture has come from then to now.

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Having known the case and the basic history behind the case, I already knew what the outcome would be. This film did a phenomenal job of keeping me captivated by showing the emotions and the deliberating of those involved in deciding to take on the government, and, therefore, defend the freedom of the press.