The Paper. - movie reviews

National Review, May 2, 1994 by John Simon

Bemoaners of past cinematic glories can have an even better time of it at The Paper, an American newspaper comedy that has delusions of harking back to such classics as His Girl Friday. The hero here is Harry Hackett, metro editor of the New York Sun (i.e., Post), whose wife, Marty, is on maternity leave from her reporter's job and nagging away at Harry to get hired by the New York Sentinel (i.e., Times), where he is about to have a job interview. Harry's nemesis is Alicia Clark, the managing editor, a ruthless operator and climber, who right now wants to print a damning story about two black youths accused of a racially motivated murder we know they did not commit. Harry has reason to doubt their guilt, but Alicia figures one can always correct the error in the next day's paper, as holding up the presses and going into overtime means spending money the Sun cannot afford.

Bernie White, the editor-in-chief, refuses to step between the combatants. For one thing, he has just learned that his prostate is the size of a bagel; for another, his mind is on making peace with his grown daughter, who has become estranged from him. Harry spends most of the day trying to track down the truth about the killing; prodding his most gifted, but spoiled and lazy, columnist, McDougal, into investigating the murder rather than conducting his private vendetta against the parking commissioner; and fighting, sometimes physically, with Alicia. In between, he has to deal with phone calls from Marty, attending to the assorted problems of his zany staff, and find time for that job interview. Repelled by the smugness and stuffiness of the Sentinel crowd, he merely steals some information right off the smarmy editor's desk, and leaves.

The screenplay by David and Stephen Koepp revels in the minutely observed details of newsroom frenzy, as well as in the piled-up tribulations of its major characters. But since the director is Ron Howard, you may be sure that, after much huffing and puffing, everything will end in mush. And so it all leads up to the birth of the Hackett baby, and to Bernie's gazing lovingly from the sidewalk through a window at his daughter's happy family life, while justice for the black youths prevails. The physical violence between Harry and Alicia in the press room is preposterous, but there is some small satisfaction in watching Glenn Close (Alicia), that smuggest of actresses, getting thoroughly mauled.

The earlier parts of the movie have at least a credible atmosphere and humor, and Michael Keaton's Harry, Robert Duvall's Bernie, and Randy Quaid's McDougal make all the right moves. Lynne Thigpen and Amelia Campbell are fine in supporting roles, but Marisa Tomei (Marty), Spalding Gray (Sentinel editor), and Jason Alexander (Jason Alexander, no matter what the role) are beginning to wear thin. Typical of the prevailing softness are the various media celebrities in cameo roles; I for one got no extra fillip from spotting Bob Costas, William Kunstler, Chuck Scarborough, and their likes popping up to supposedly eye-popping effect.

Which brings me to why The Paper was foredoomed. In John Corry's book, My Times, we read: "The idea of journalism has changed, transformed by a conflation called media." The day when the newsroom or pressroom of a New York tabloid was where history was made by rough-and-tumble reporters in shirts and suspenders is over. We no longer inhabit the world depicted by Hecht and MacArthur in The Front Page, but another, far less amusing one bestowed on us by Oprah, Geraldo, Letterman, and Walters. The media have ousted the press, and the sun has long since set on the New York Sun. The Sentinel, I suspect, will be next to go.