On the Basis of Sex (2018, PG-13)

*Disclaimer: Frickin’ Armie Hammer. I hate that the guy who played such a wonderful, feminist, non-toxic man backing up such a fierce woman turned out to be an alleged predator. It’s not fair to this movie that his creepiness polluted it.*

 

Since I don’t have a ton of nominated films I want to try and see before the Oscars, I’m going to try and catch some other well-received movies from this year that didn’t make the cut, to better inform my eventual Personal Nominations post.  This is one I saw before the nominations came out, but expect other non-nominated movie write-ups to get mixed in here as well.

This is another one like Bohemian Rhapsody or Mary Queen of Scots, where I can see why the reviews wound up more on the mixed side but I still like it quite a bit.  While, as an inspirational biopic, it can feel a little by-the-numbers sometimes, it’s ultimately a great story bolstered by some fine performances.

In 1957, Ruth Bader Ginsburg wasn’t a Supreme Court Justice.  Instead, she was one of nine women admitted to Harvard Law, a mere six years after women are first admitted to the prestigious institution.  The film follows the tremendous work she does balancing her education and her taxing home life, then jumps ahead to her first major case, taking on a sexually-discriminatory law in a federal appeals court.

I’ll get the complaints out of the way first so I can move onto other stuff.  My biggest issue with the movie is that, at times, it feels it’s checking boxes off a list of Ruth’s life events, at least for the two major periods that the film covers.  There are times when it seems to hop to plot points rather than flow into them, which can give it a choppy feel, as well as a sort of perfunctory air.  Also, from what I’ve read, the movie is mostly accurate save for some added dramatic tension in the climactic trial scene, and while there are plenty of films that play fast and loose with the facts, I don’t think this particular change was needed here.  As I was watching that scene, instead of being caught up in the story, I was thinking, “Is that really how it went down?”, a sign to me that the change was misguided instead of narratively beneficial.

All right, now that that’s out of the way!  There’s a lot that I love about this movie.  I really like that it resists the urge to mythologize such a well-respected figure as Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  In various ways, it highlights aspects of her fuller humanity.  It of course shows her righteous indignation at the towering amounts of sexism she encounters at virtually all times, which was to be expected, given how heavily the film deals with women’s oppression and the changing times.  But there are other ways as well.  Ruth isn’t the one to come up with every answer/solution on her own, but not in a way that diminishes her awesomeness – instead, she recognizes other people’s valuable input when she hears it and responds accordingly.  Also, there are plenty of little throwaway moments of her being a person instead of Future Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  She plays charades with her husband and friends, she angrily kicks off her shoes after an aggravating party, and she jumps up and wraps her legs around her much-taller husband when they get intimate.  All these things add up to remind you that Ruth isn’t a mythic figure of feminism and justice that sprang fully formed from Zeus’s head; she’s a human, albeit one who’s done incredible things.

You probably don’t need me to tell you how inspirational it is to see Ruth being smart and tough in male-dominated circles, how much it hurts to see the moments when she feels worn down by the pervasive sexism she withstands, or how stirring it is to see her in the court room.  All this is totally awesome, and I’m 100% down for that.  What I’m also down for, though, is the portrayal of her husband Marty, a tax lawyer who’s a nigh-endlessly supportive husband and involved father.  Marty cooks for the family, is tender with the children, and champions Ruth without standing in front of her and being her male savior, and it’s just amazing.  He’s not perfect – he can be too placating at times, giving people the benefit of the doubt when Ruth sees they haven’t earned any leeway – but he’s a really beautiful portrait of non-toxic masculinity.  Again, I love Ruth and her story, but while I’ve seen some great films about incredible women from history, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen one in which a male character was so utterly behind her all the way.  It feels really radical to see Marty being so supportive, gentle, and emotionally open without the film casting any aspersions on his masculinity.

Strong cast all around.  Felicity Jones is great as Ruth – fierce and formidable, but also frustrated and uncertain at times – and Armie Hammer is terrifically warm as Marty.  The film also features Sam Waterston and Stephen Root as members of the old Harvard boys’ club, Justin Theroux as an ACLU lawyer and old friend of Ruth’s, and Kathy Bates as historic lawyer Dorothy Kenyon.

Warnings

Language, light sexual content, smoking/drinking, and strong thematic elements.