ASK E. JEAN – Review by Loren King
I expected a richly-detailed, well-constructed film from director Ivy Meeropol whose resume includes such stellar documentaries are Heir to an Execution and Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn.
Ask E. Jean exceeded even those high expectations. I thought I knew E. Jean Carroll thanks to her landmark 2019 defamation lawsuit again Donald Trump but this comprehensive film delivers so much more. Elegantly edited by Leah Goudsmit and Ferne Pearlstein, Ask E. Jean follows Carroll’s early life and fascinating career as a prolific writer and advice columnist during the glory days of high end magazines. Through its archival footage of Carroll in the 80s and 90s and interviews with her today, the film puts sexual abuse, rape, harassment and the repercussions for women who report the crime into social and cultural context.
Carroll was at the height of her fame in New York City when the encounter with Trump at Bergdorf Goodman led to the rape and the subsequent lawsuit. Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation and ordered to pay Carroll nearly $90 million in damages. (The film notes at the end that he has yet to pay her a cent.)
Meeropol expertly juggles a complex timeline, weaving Carroll’s court depositions with news and archival footage to connect past and present. A lunch with her longtime friend, writer Lisa Birnbach, is particularly poignant. Birnbach, the first person Carroll contacted after the assault and who tried to convince her resistant friend to report the rape, testified in Carroll’s 2023 civil trial in Manhattan. In their conversation in the film, Birnbach notes that Carroll was far more famous and well-regarded inNew York in the 1990s than real estate developer Trump was. “He was just a guy with a bad comb over,” says Birnbach. But he had a team of lawyers and Carroll knew what she’d face. Sadly, she wasn’t wrong.
The stakes for women then and now are the film’s powerful subtext. It’s underscored by Trump’s defamation of Carroll on social media and by the chilling number of of hate messages and death threats to which Carroll is still subjected. But that’s countered by Carroll’s resilient spirit and determination, buoyed by the thousands of letters she regularly gets from women from all walks of life who understand, identify and find hope in her fight.
