j* Movie Reviews 2019

On the basis of Sex (2018)

I think movies about law and lawyers are usually too slow and talky. This is a movie about lawyers and law, and I found it slow and talky.

It's pleasant enough. And I'm sure Ruth Bader Ginsberg was a total badarse and super revolutionary and all that. But I just didn't get the feels. Hidden Figures, about black female computation staff in a similar era gave me all the feels, and they really centred their struggle for recognition and rights in their individual humanity. This, I felt, made an abstraction out of RBG and her fight. And maybe that's the point, the laws are abstract and separate and constructed/destructed. But it's hearts and minds I want to see, not just whirring minds.

I was trying to think about how I'd change it, and I think it tried to be too true to the real story? Included too many details for "the fans" and didn't go hard enough into "what's the story." So I'd probably do it in halves... either focussing on her times at uni, or focussing on the first big break case. Because I felt the impetus got a bit lost in the middle. There were a couple of strong points and places where the emotion was handled well, but I found the ending wholly unsatisfying.

J* gives it 3 stars.