The Irishman

Richard Jewell is taking a hit at the box office, due in large part to an angry campaign by the Atlanta newspaper who employed reporter Kathy Scruggs, the real-life journalist in the film who broke the story that Jewell was a suspect in the Olympic bombing. I agree that besmirching a real person—in this case, suggesting that Scruggs traded sex for information—is unacceptable. But it’s hard not to see the hypocrisy here, as the paper who helped destroy Jewell’s life is besmirching a belated tribute to his character.

I watched this film with reluctance. I worried about supporting it after reading about its treatment of Scruggs. I dislike Clint Eastwood and most of the films he directs, which I find heavy handed and troubling in their messaging. But after all, this film was about Jewell, and I admired Eastwood’s choice to tell his story.

To my surprise, I barely noticed the reporter’s sex favor scene (which I would have assumed to be Hollywood exaggeration anyway, had I read nothing beforehand). I wish the reviews had focused instead on Scrugg’s quiet regret in the film when she discovers the impossibility of Jewell’s involvement in the bombing. The real-life Scruggs didn’t do anything that unusual: reporting that Jewell was a suspect before investigating the likelihood of his guilt or the bias of her source/s. She serves as a stand-in for any reporter rushing to get the story out; that rush carries with it significant risk to others, as any viewer of Absence of Malice (or really, anyone who has lived through the twentieth century) will remember.

Used to Eastwood’s usual loud themes, I was struck by this movie’s quiet grace. It’s a rare film, one that relies on understated eloquence, realistic performances, and a stirring portrayal by Paul Walter Hauser. The film slowly reveals how Jewell’s admiration for authority helped contribute to his undoing. Hauser’s performance is nuanced, powerful, and ultimately heartbreaking. While at first, we viewers wonder if he’s simply a dupe, we soon discover he’s more self-aware than he seems, and the betrayal he feels at his idols treating him as a terrorist—even after they know better—is devastating. The way society (led by the media) went along with this faulty judgment—generalizing him as an overweight, friendless guy living with his mom, and therefore sketchy—didn’t even jibe with his real-life actions or social personality. I read a number of articles after watching the film and was struck by the accuracy of the movie’s characterizations and storytelling. The Scruggs sex claim (which apparently was also in the book that was the film’s source) was an anomaly in a film that otherwise hewed surprisingly close to the true events and characters, including Scrugg’s.

The skill of the man portraying Jewell isn’t being touted, any more than the film is. Why nominate someone who is playing an everyman, real-life hero with pitch-perfect realism and heart, when you can nominate folks playing popes or super-villains? Why pay attention to an actor who has played minor roles when you can celebrate the movie stars you always celebrate? He may have made an impression as an exceedingly dumb criminal in I, Tonya, but Hauser barely registered in Late Night, given the stereotypical nature of his role, and he lacks the glamour of the well-known figures who were nominated. So no one will say anything when you leave him off your nomination roster, right, HFPA? Sigh.

I would have given nods to Eastwood, the film, Hauser, Sam Rockwell (charming and very likable here), and the always-wonderful Kathy Bates, but only the latter has received any credit from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. I could see the organization thinking the film too controversial and backing away from it, but that doesn’t explain all the nods for The Irishman, which is based on the confessions of a man whose claims have been universally condemned as false by mob authorities-–and by logic. I guess the nominators thought real-life mobsters and teamsters didn’t deserve fair treatment. Or that entertainment was a good value in a film, a bar The Irishman clearly failed to meet. (Only Al Pacino succeeded in stifling my snores during that tedious endurance test.) And it’s hard to believe an association who yet again nominated no female film directors had concerns about a faulty portrayal of a woman in Richard Jewell.

Alas, the Hollywood Foreign Press seems to be on a roll this year in dismissing creative content and good acting. There are the shut-outs of The Good Place and Schitt’s Creek and the group’s admiration for the bland The Kominsky Method. The gutting, visceral When They See Us and its director and largely unknown actors are ignored, but superstar Jennifer Lopez gets a nod. Killing Eve was very weak this year, but it and the star-laden Big Little Lies (which I couldn’t even get through this season) are up on their nomination lists, while Veep is ignored for its weakest season (which is still better than these shows’ best). At least Unbelievable is getting its due.

I hope that some of you will ignore the nominators’ seriously questionable taste and celebrity pandering, and watch Richard Jewell. After viewing it, I stayed in the theater’s tight seats as others filed out, taking it in. I kept thinking of another favorite film, Searching for Bobby Fischer, and how its subtle messages stayed with me for years to come. I kept pondering the dangers of small assumptions, and how pernicious they could become. I wondered what kind of faith could sustain what Jewell had gone through. I looked at my sister, another disliker of Eastwood’s, who was also failing to stir; she was as surprised and moved as I was. 

I don’t think these kinds of films often get much credit, even when they lack controversy. They’re not splashy enough. They don’t involve mob hits or distinctive villains; they don’t feature many actors who look like supermodels. But they stick to you, change you, sometimes make you wiser than you were before. I regret every minute I put into The Irishman. I am ready to watch Richard Jewell again and again, if only to bring others along.