Truth

James Vanderbilt's absorbing drama, "Truth," reminded me of certain films from the late '70s/early '80s like "Norma Rae" and "Silkwood," that centered on real life women who were fighting to reveal important truths while corporate bosses were doing what they could to destroy each heroine's character or silence her altogether.

Both Sally Field and Meryl Streep played these courageous, flawed women who were caught in extraordinary situations. One died for her cause.

These, and other "issue-oriented" films, proved compelling and provided great roles for actresses. "Truth" is a throwback to those movies, and I mean that as a high compliment.

In September of 2004, "60 Minutes II" aired a story, produced by respected journalist Mary Mapes and reported by the venerated Dan Rather, that seemed to prove that President George W. Bush had avoided military service in the Texas Air National Guard after using his family's influence to bypass serving his country in Vietnam.

Bush was leading in the polls thanks to his attacking Democratic candidate John Kerry's Vietnam War record, and this report could have broken the election wide open.

The veracity of the piece seemed to hinge on whether documents were real or forged. In a rush, on deadline, mistakes were made in authentication.

Immediately after the broadcast, conservative media outlets made the authenticity of the documents (or possible lack thereof) the main focus of their own stories -- not the fact that the Mapes team were exposing a bigger truth about Bush and that what the documents were alleging was corroborated by the Lieutenant Governor of Texas (who admitted he helped get Bush into the Guard to keep him from going to war).

The CBS bigwigs, who initially backed Mapes and Rather 100 percent, began to capitulate to growing criticism and accusations that they were trying to influence the election. CBS forced Rather to apologize on air for the piece, and began a witch hunt to take down everyone involved in the story by creating a HUAC-like "panel" of conservatives to investigate the, well, investigation. Mapes, her team and even Rather were all eventually fired.

"Truth" is based on Mapes' book, "Truth and Duty: The Press, The President and The Privilege of Power," and breathlessly chronicles the determined reporter and her loyal team as they put together the story and try desperately to dot every 'I' and cross every 't,' before their looming air date.

Cate Blanchett, in yet another astonishing transformation, plays Mapes. Whether displaying fierce determination, gobsmacked humiliation or angry indignation, Blanchett beguiles and transfixes.

And Robert Redford is a surprisingly believable and affecting Dan Rather.

The supporting cast is superb, especially Topher Grace as Mapes' earnest researcher, Mike Smith.

Writer-director Vanderbilt manages to keep his narrative in intense thriller mode, upping the suspense ante and culminating in a bunch of brilliant final moments where Mapes has a chance to defend herself, and we watch an icon (Rather) crushed and broken by his alleged-champions.

In a particularly affecting moment, we watch a just-dismissed Mapes walking out of the CBS building as Rather apologizes on the TV screen in the background.

One of the riches of "Truth" is just how unclear some of the motivations on the parts of many involved remain to this day; here, they are portrayed ambiguously, including Mapes' phone call alerting the Kerry campaign to the evidence.

But the takedown of these once-respected journalists is frightening, particularly Mapes who was responsible for breaking the Abu Graib story, and would win a Peabody Award a year after her firing.

In addition, the depiction of news outlets no longer doing any investigating but, instead, report on reporting is chillingly timely.

"They do not get to smack us just for asking the fucking question," Mapes outrages in the film. And yet bloggers promoting their own agendas managed to focus on one (probable) mistake instead of bothering to ask the hard questions about the President's Guard service -- a president who many perceive as having stolen two elections in a row.

Political lean will impact your initial approach to this film, but the filmmakers' attempt at balance must be acknowledged. That, and the fact that a dialogue is pursued about whether authenticity of evidence should be paramount or whether truth should be pursued beyond the smaller details in hopes of bigger and more profound answers.

Ironically, another excellent investigative journalist-themed film opens in a few weeks: "Spotlight," about the Boston Globe's breaking of the Catholic sex abuse scandal in 2002. And while that film is less didactic and has a quieter power, it doesn't dare implicate either complicit Pope (John Paul and Benedict) in the scandal, even though the evidence of their knowledge and involvement was and is overwhelming. "Truth," at least, has the balls to more than infer that CBS compromised journalistic integrity and acted to protect the President. And in a revealing 11th-hour moment, Smith (Grace) delivers a jaw-dropping indictment of CBS and how they put the needs of their parent company, Viacom, first. This scene by itself proves that the filmmakers are courageous and daring.

A word about Blanchett: The actress just keeps topping herself. It's getting ridiculous. She's her generation's Streep. And her performances in "Truth" and "Carol" should be a mandate for an Academy rule change so actors can compete in the same category for more than one genius performance. If there's any justice, she'd win her third Oscar.

Add Mary Mapes to Norma Rae Webster and Karen Silkwood and that pantheon of difficult, exasperating but heroic figures both on and off-screen.