There’s a phrase that involves thoughts in terms of American journalist, writer, and recommendation columnist E. Jean Carroll: irrepressible. She’s not simply somebody you possibly can’t maintain down, however somebody you possibly can’t maintain again.
Open and brassy and sincere and enjoyable, she’s the type of individual you’d belief to share horror tales over drinks: not solely she is going to discover comedy in your darkest fears, however she’ll additionally present actionable recommendation. As a journalist, Carroll is the individual to ship into weirdly particular cultural trenches, rising triumphant with tales about every little thing from dwelling in each an precise frat home and the houses of many 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 sophisticated, and the way it virtually held Carroll again.
The movie opens with Carroll’s landmark 2019 defamation lawsuit in opposition to Donald Trump, sparked by a New York journal article through which she asserted that the then-real property magnate sexually assaulted her in the mid-’90s. What adopted was extremely advanced and arduous, legally and personally, and Meeropol does a advantageous job of protecting that chapter’s many threads in an simply understood format. (Of word: Trump was discovered accountable for sexual abuse and defamation and ordered to pay Carroll practically $90 million in damages. He has but to pay a dime.)
Largely, the filmmaker retains an eye fixed on what was, for Carroll, the most vital factor. After she went public together with her story, and printed a e book on the similar matter, in early 2019, Trump known as her a liar on each platform conceivable, from interviews to his personal “Fact 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 perpetually altered her life.
Whereas the movie’s opening is critical and upsetting, Meeropol opts to shortly shift gears. She takes us again practically three many years, to Carroll’s debut into the New York Metropolis media world. We’re greeted by funky footage of the glowing metropolis, pictures of her extremely high-energy TV present “Ask E. Jean,” and a common dunking into Carroll’s great 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 Fact.” Take a look at Carroll explaining how her Elle recommendation column was the stuff of lifelong desires, 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 buddies at 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 needed, 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 vital the fact is to Carroll and the way it’s one thing she’s constructed her life on and actually believes in defending. In 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 in the energy and magic of girls, not solely be a sufferer of a horrific act however then keep quiet about it for therefore lengthy?
That’s the key to Carroll’s life, and to the life of many different victims of sexual assault, defamation, and different gender-based violence. Not simply, how did this occur? However, as is usually 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 in a position to confront some 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 keep on with viewers.
She tells us repeatedly she feared that another person would inform her Trump story, and get it unsuitable. Her can-do perspective 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 greatest recommendation solely applies in the second, in sure locations, for sure folks. Dwelling in the after of these questions? That’s far more vital.
Grade: B
“Ask E. Jean” premiered at the 2025 Telluride Movie Competition. It’s presently in search of U.S. distribution.
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