There’s a phrase that involves thoughts relating to American journalist, creator, and recommendation columnist E. Jean Carroll: irrepressible. She’s not simply somebody you’ll be able to’t maintain down, however somebody you’ll be able to’t maintain again.
Open and brassy and sincere and enjoyable, she’s the sort of particular person you’d belief to share horror tales over drinks: not solely she’s going to discover comedy in your darkest fears, however she’ll additionally present actionable recommendation. As a journalist, Carroll is the particular person to ship into weirdly particular cultural trenches, rising triumphant with tales about every little thing from residing in each an precise frat home and the properties of lots of her ex-boyfriends (and their present companions) to Hunter S. Thompson’s legacy and winky jokes about Ernest Hemingway.
She’s gonzo and she’s nice, and Ivy Meeropol’s documentary “Ask E. Jean” makes clear how hard-won all of it was, how difficult, and the way it nearly held Carroll again.
The movie opens with Carroll’s landmark 2019 defamation lawsuit towards Donald Trump, sparked by a New York journal article through which she asserted that the then-real property magnate sexually assaulted her within the mid-’90s. What adopted was extremely advanced and arduous, legally and personally, and Meeropol does a fantastic job of conserving that chapter’s many threads in an simply understood format. (Of be aware: Trump was discovered answerable for sexual abuse and defamation and ordered to pay Carroll almost $90 million in damages. He has but to pay a dime.)
Principally, the filmmaker retains a watch on what was, for Carroll, crucial component. After she went public together with her story, and revealed a guide on the identical matter, in early 2019, Trump known as her a liar on each platform possible, from interviews to his personal “Reality Social.” For Carroll, whose life and profession centered on her credibility as each an individual and a reporter, this was a bridge too far. This what lastly pushed her to do one thing that without end altered her life.
Whereas the movie’s opening is critical and upsetting, Meeropol opts to rapidly shift gears. She takes us again almost three many years, to Carroll’s debut into the New York Metropolis media world. We’re greeted by funky footage of the glowing metropolis, photographs of her extremely high-energy TV present “Ask E. Jean,” and a basic dunking into Carroll’s fantastic model of “no-nonsense” (Oprah’s personal phrases!) recommendation and journalism. The attendant whiplash is critical as an introduction to Carroll, however the fixed switching between Carroll “now” and “then” begins to grate.
Meeropol makes use of this looping timeline to inform Carroll’s story. Contemplate Carroll’s wrenching depositions, then zing again to her 1964 look on “To Inform the Reality.” Take a look at Carroll explaining how her Elle recommendation column was the stuff of lifelong goals, then get pleasure from a section about her childhood fascination with Expensive Abby and the like. Inquisitive about her cheery persona, nonetheless so plentiful, even now, even after every little thing? It’s time for footage chronicling her teen years as an precise cheerleader.
Whereas these reflections supply some helpful context to Carroll, this circuitous plotting is distracting. At any age, at any time, E. Jean Carroll is inherently compelling.
Clocking in at simply 91 minutes, Meeropol successfully makes use of a big selection of footage, analysis, speaking head interviews, and extra to inform the story. The kaleidoscopic assortment of every little thing from intimate interviews (Carroll and her pals on the Waverly Inn, actually consuming a “woman dinner” of fries, Caesar salads, and martinis) and completely gobsmacking archival footage (Carroll’s videotaped depositions from her 2019 and 2022 lawsuits) is informative and wealthy, permitting us to get to know Carroll as we additionally study the worst bits of her life story.
What’s most revelatory, and mandatory, about “Ask E. Jean” proves to be what’s most painful. It’s important that Meeropol current Carroll in her full irrepressible glory. We see how essential the reality is to Carroll and the way it’s one thing she’s constructed her life on and really believes in defending. Within the course of, the documentarian additionally builds out the movie’s underlying fact. How might somebody like E. Jean Carroll, somebody so open and sincere, somebody who reveled in telling it straight, who believed within the energy and magic of ladies, not solely be a sufferer of a horrific act however then keep quiet about it for therefore lengthy?
That’s the important thing to Carroll’s life, and to the lifetime of many different victims of sexual assault, defamation, and different gender-based violence. Not simply, how did this occur? However, as is commonly lobbed at victims, how did you enable this to occur? As we get to know Carroll, we see how keenly these questions nonetheless impression and confound even her.
Even Carroll wasn’t capable of confront a few of her greatest pains and issues. A sequence from the “Ask E. Jean” present, through which she interviews a rape sufferer and comes painfully near disclosing what the duo have in widespread, will persist with viewers.
She tells us repeatedly she feared that another person would inform her Trump story, and get it improper. Her can-do angle was overwhelmed by what occurred to her. Her rabble-rousing, rah-rah sense of sisterhood and woman energy was for others; for her, it was fully inacessible. And that’s not all.
These contradictions are what make “Ask E. Jean” actually spark. Carroll could have made her bones as somebody with prepared solutions and an irrepressible spirit, however Meeropol’s movie is greatest when its topic lastly realizes even the perfect recommendation solely applies within the second, in sure locations, for sure folks. Residing within the after of these questions? That’s rather more essential.
Grade: B
“Ask E. Jean” premiered on the 2025 Telluride Movie Pageant. It’s at the moment searching for U.S. distribution.
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