The Post film review: Steven Spielberg's riveting newspaper drama could be subtitled: 'FAO Trump'

The parallels between the Nixon and Trump administrations will make you flinch in Spielberg's poignant new film

Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham, 'The Washington Post’s' publisher and Tom Hanks as the legendary editor Ben Bradlee in 'The Post'

It's hard to think of a film that ticks more boxes in terms of feted critical and awards success than The Post. Championing journalism, it congratulates and reassures the journalists – who will be among the first to see it – on their choice of turbulent career. Holding political feet to the fire, it will be applauded by a newly politicised Hollywood, looking to give the Trump White House some serious side-eye. Then there's the talent: director Steven Spielberg and lead actors Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks are so decorated their list of award wins and nominations all require dedicated Wikipedia pages.

"If I can't make it this year, I'm not making it," Spielberg said of The Post, which has Trump parallels at every turn but would still be a fascinating movie stripped of its new-found poignancy.

Set in the early 1970s, it finds The Washington Post struggling to match the journalistic prowess of The New York Times, being scooped time and time again, lacking in resources and procrastinating over its impending stock market launch.

Tom Hanks plays Ben Bradlee, the Post's defiant and no-nonsense editor, Streep the newspaper's smart but self-doubting publisher, Kay Graham. The embattled executives are desperate for a big story to turn things around, but get more than they bargained for when the Pentagon Papers – top-secret documents swiped by a whistleblower that detail the government's private and deceptive pessimism about the Vietnam War – quite literally fall into the Post's lap. It would hardly be spoilerific to detail more of the plot when the story is already out there, but there's a thoroughly enjoyable, will-they-won't-they-publish central storyline it would be a shame to scupper for those who aren't au fait.

Ever the master storyteller, Spielberg has no trouble drawing you in. As soon as you enter the newsroom (after an opening Vietnam battle scene that feels slightly perfunctory from the man who made Saving Private Ryan) you're hooked, assisted by Hanks who has a peerless ability to make his characters instantly feel like an old friend and mentor. It's a thrill seeing him act with Streep and the pair bounce of each other disarmingly, though their performances aren't perfect. Streep gives a diffidence and general befuddlement to Graham that initially feels over-egged – at least until you settle into the groove of her character later on. Hanks, meanwhile, fires out the newspaperman tropes, gruffly barking at reporters, slamming rolled up newspapers on the meeting room tables and holding news conferences with his feet up on the desk. These are forgivable though, and in some cases difficult to escape given the period.

The script from Liz Hannah and Josh Singer is taut, efficient and has plenty of sharp lines that get a laugh (even if a few of the journalistic terms feel slightly shoehorned in: "I buried the lede!", Graham explains of her poorly arranged orders of business during one conversation).

A disparate group of excellent actors including Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Matthew Rhys, Carrie Coon, Alison Brie and David Cross are the supporting cast, and in most cases supporting is all they're really required to do – though Rhys is very compelling in his short amount of screen time as whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. Paulson, meanwhile, must be slightly gutted to have landed the part of Bradlee's sandwich-making housewife while Coon plays the hotshot female investigative reporter.

The Post whizzes by, engrossing the viewer and imparting blink-and-you'll-miss-it plot points, a thoroughly confident film except for the final 20 minutes when it appears to have a bit of an identity crisis. Is this a political film about holding truth to power? An industry meditation about journalists uniting for a common cause? A feminist reading of Graham's role in history? Or a parable for the situation the press currently finds itself in with President Donald J. Trump ("I don't think I could go through this again," a character laments in one of the final scenes)? In trying to address all four aspects, the end feels slightly rushed and I would have welcomed an extra half an hour.

Nevertheless, The Post is a thoroughly enjoyable film, on a par with the very similar but slightly more subtle Spotlight. In the age of ideology over art, if the latter can win a Best Picture Oscar, it's hard to see how the former can't, especially given its added timeliness.

'The Post' opens in UK cinemas on 19 January 2018