Film Review: ‘Half the Picture’ Explains How Hollywood Fails Women

While a bit messy at times and not discussing anything too new, Half the Picture shows the lengths that female directors must go to in order to be treated fair in Hollywood

It is telling that Half the Picture opens with juror Jessica Chastain’s closing address at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, where she discussed her dismay at the lack of women represented behind the scenes in the festival. The most recent Festival tried to make up for this by hosting a number of female jurors (including Ava DuVernay, interviewed in Half the Picture) and a decent percentage more female filmmakers than the year before. Yet in between this documentary was released at festivals, pointing out a number of the flaws of the Hollywood system when it comes to giving equal opportunities to female directors.

Half the Picture doesn’t exactly provide a fresh take on a systemic issue that has plagued Hollywood for decades, and interviews with reporters such as Rebecca Keegan from Vanity Fair and the LA Times reiterate points that have been discussed by writers like Keegan for years. On top of that, many aspects of the movie date themselves fairly quickly, including the evolution of the #MeToo movement in the time since Half the Picture was released and a few more studio projects going to women. But overall the importance of Half the Picture hasn’t changed in the slightest, and director Amy Adrion builds themes that have haunted Hollywood for the entirety of its existence.

Adrion, making her first documentary feature, works with a predominantly female cast that only helps the movie’s point be made. By interviewing a number of prominent filmmakers from all fields and walks of life, Adrion is able to provide how big of an epidemic this has become throughout film and television. Looking at the botched origins of some directors (Penelope Spheeris was tapped to work on Saturday Night Live before they went for a man, Jill Soloway felt directing would be the only way to make her scripts the way she felt it should be done) to the difficulties of working with men (Lena Dunham explains at one point that a man tried to tell her what to do, despite Dunham’s DGA award) and so on. Perhaps the best and most heartbreaking story belongs to Brenda Chapman, the original director of the PIXAR film Brave before being fired for “creative differences” that Chapman realized was essentially code for “female director.”

Half the Picture doesn’t seem to be in the business of changing Hollywood, instead pointing out the problems inherent to it. The sexual harassment, homophobia and racism, lowered expectations and casual misogyny that so many of the directors interviewed face is hideous, and shows what needs to change, though no solutions are offered beyond “hire more women.” But frankly, that is the most important solution that there is in a case like this. A description of a director saying she almost didn’t hire a woman for a cinematographer job is punctuated by her realizing that the woman’s reel was worse because directors see the same reel again and again–she misses out because no one gives women.

Seeing so many brilliant women discussing their works in such a manner is a really smart way to show how Hollywood works, and filmmakers I love like Karyn Kusama, Ava DuVernay, Lynn Shelton and many more tell you everything you need to know to remember why you love their films in the first place. Though the movie doesn’t really tell you anything that couldn’t be learned from a few articles online, it still achieves the feelings needed to understand the struggles of Hollywood’s most overlooked.

Half the Picture debuts in theaters in New York on June 8^th, in LA on June 22^nd, and on iTunes and other services on July 24^th