The Paper (film)

1994 US comedy drama film by Ron Howard
Facing dire financial straits, the paper's owner has Henry’s nemesis, managing editor Alicia Clark, impose unpopular cutbacks. He is also clashing with his pregnant wife Martha, a fellow Sun journalist, over her fears that he won’t be around to help raise their child. She urges him to become an editor at the prestigious New York Sentinel, which would mean more money, respect, and fewer hours. That morning, a hot story develops involving the murder of two white businessmen in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A pair of African American teenagers are arrested for the crime, but Henry and columnist Michael McDougal become skeptical after hearing cops criticizing the arrest on the newsroom police scanner. Henry becomes obsessed with the case, pushing his staff to dig into the story. It leads him to blow his chances at the Sentinel when he cannot resist stealing information about the case while in the Sentinel newsroom interviewing for the job. Meanwhile, a source tells Martha that the businessmen were bankers who stole money from a reputed New York mobster, further convincing Henry that the Brooklyn youths were wrongly arrested. Henry pushes to extend the deadline to get more time to nail the story, but Alicia refuses, citing the cost of overtime pay for the press workers and delivery truck drivers. With time running out, Henry and McDougal get a police detective to confirm that the suspects are innocent, and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Returning to the Sun, Henry confronts Alicia, who refuses to let him stop the presses and run the right story. They have an awkward fistfight before Alicia prevails, then fires Henry. After having a drink with McDougal at a journalist watering hole, Alicia has a change of heart. But before she can reach the press room on a pay phone, she is hit in the leg by a stray bullet fired by an drunk city official who had gone to the bar to confront McDougal over columns attacking him. Meanwhile, Henry arrives home just as Martha is being rushed to the hospital for an emergency caesarean section. As doctors prep Martha for surgery, in another part of the hospital, Alicia insists on calling the Sun to change the front page before allowing doctors to treat her. The next morning, Alicia lays in her hospital bed reading a copy of the Sun with the headline “They Didn’t Do It.” Henry stops by the nursery to see his newborn son, then goes to Martha’s room. As he lays down with her, a news anchor on the bedside radio reports that the youths have been released thanks to the Sun’s exclusive scoop.

Screenwriter Stephen Koepp, a senior editor at Time magazine, collaborated on the screenplay with his brother David and together they initially came up with "A Day in the Life of a Paper" as their premise. David said, "We wanted a regular day, though this is far from regular." They also wanted to "look at the financial pressures of a paper to get on the street and still tell the truth." Howard read their script and remembers, "I liked the fact that it dealt with the behind the scenes of headlines. But I also connected with the characters trying to cope during this 24 hour period, desperately trying to find this balance in their personal lives, past and present." To prepare for the film, Howard made several visits to the New York Post and Daily News (which would provide the inspiration for the fictional newspaper in the film). He remembers, "You'd hear stuff from columnists and reporters about some jerk they'd worked with I heard about the scorned female reporter who wound up throwing hot coffee in some guy's crotch when she found out he was fooling around with someone else." It was these kinds of stories that inspired Howard to change the gender of the managing editor that Glenn Close would later play. Howard felt the Koepps' script featured a newsroom that was too male dominated. The writers agreed and changed the character's name from Alan to Alicia but kept the dialogue the same. According to David Koepp, "Anything else would be trying to figure out, 'How would a woman in power behave?' And it shouldn't be about that. It should be about how a person in power behaves, and since that behavior is judged one way when it's a man, why should it be judged differently if it's a woman?" One of Howard's goals was to cram in as much information about a 24 hour day in the newspaper business as humanly possible. He said, "I'm gonna get as many little details right as possible: a guy having to rewrite a story and it bugs the hell out of him, another guy talking to a reporter on the phone and saying, 'Well, it's not Watergate for God's sake.' Little, tiny – you can't even call them subplots – that most people on the first screening won't even notice, probably. It's just sort of newsroom background.

The Paper was given a limited release in five theaters on March 18, 1994 where it grossed $175,507 on its opening weekend. It expanded its release the following weekend to 1,092 theaters where it made $7 million over that weekend. The film went on to gross $38.8 million in the United States and Canada and $9.6 million in the rest of the world for a total of $48.4 million worldwide.

The Paper received positive reviews from critics and holds an 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 35 reviews; the average rating is 7.00/10. The consensus states: "Fast and frenetic, The Paper captures the energy of the newsroom thanks to its cast and director on first rate form." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 70 out of 100 based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on a scale of A+ to F.

In his review for The Boston Globe, Jay Carr wrote, "It takes a certain panache to incorporate the ever present threat of your own extinction into the giddy tradition of the newspaper comedy, but The Paper pulls it off. There's no point pretending that I'm objective about this one. I know it's not Citizen Kane, but it pushes my buttons". Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "In the end, The Paper offers splashy entertainment that's a lot like a daily newspaper itself – hot news cools fast." Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B" rating and Owen Gleiberman praised Michael Keaton's performance: "Keaton is at his most urgent and winning here. His fast break, neurotic style – owlish stare, motor mouth – is perfect for the role of a compulsive news junkie who lives for the rush of his job", but felt that the film was "hampered by its warmed over plot, which seems designed to teach Henry and the audience lessons". In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin was critical of the film. "Each principal has a problem that is conveniently addressed during this one day interlude, thanks to a screenplay (by David Koepp and Stephen Koepp) that feels like the work of a committee. The film's general drift is to start these people off at fever pitch and then let them gradually unveil life's inner meaning as the tale trudges toward resolution." Rita Kempley, in her review for The Washington Post, wrote, "Ron Howard still thinks women belong in the nursery instead of the newsroom. Screenwriters David Koepp of Jurassic Park and his brother Stephen (of Time magazine) are witty and on target in terms of character, but their message in terms of male and female relations is a prehistoric one." In an interview, New York journalist and author Robert Caro praised The Paper, calling it "a great newspaper movie."