The opening scenes in She Said, Maria Schrader's new movie about the media coverage that first addressed Hollywood's colossal #metoo problem, spend a considerable amount of time introducing us to the New York Times reporters at the center of the film, Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan). It contextualizes each of them within their respective family dynamics and contrasts their identities with respect to family life. There's Twohey—the WASP-y career-driven new mother contending with post-partum depression—and Kantor—the more family-oriented mom juggling her work, supervising kids' homework, and marriage while trying to maintain Jewish family traditions. It's not unusual for a movie to telescope their character's background details succinctly in order to get to the central themes, namely how these two women's distinctive backgrounds are the stage for the pervasive societal sexism they are exposing with their reporting.
