Meryl Streep was super in her role as Katharine Graham.

Not five minutes into watching “The Post” at the Fredonia Opera House Tuesday, two questions swirled in my head: Should I tell my father-in-law to see this film? Can Tom Hanks pull off being Bill Bradlee?

The film’s powerful opening on front lines of Vietnam made me wonder if it would be too much for veterans to bear. If my father-in-law were sitting next to me, I probably would have leaned over and said, “You might want to close your eyes at this part,” but I’m sure he would have leaned back over and said, “Catherine, I lived it.” The deep doom of the opening scene quickly transformed into one of outrage through the eyes of someone “just visiting” the front lines. It’s here that an inner rebellion begins within Dan Ellsberg, who copies the top secret Pentagon Papers and sends them to The New York Times for publication in June 1971.

Just as George Lucas created the prequel concept with his “Star Wars” series, “The Post” serves as the prequel to “All the President’s Men.” The casting in “President’s Men” was inarguably perfect. Viewers of that film didn’t see Jason Robards, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, but instead saw Ben Bradlee, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, respectively. In “The Post,” it was easy to see Meryl Streep, Matthew Rhys and Tom Hanks as Katharine Graham, Dan Ellsberg and Tom Hanks.

Should I have said Ben Bradlee? No. While Hanks had a marvelous script, I thought he delivered a lackluster performance. I just kept seeing Tom Hanks. A similar thing happened to me while I was watching “Finding Dory.” I found myself saying, “Ellen is doing a good job.” Ellen. Ellen. Ellen. Here, I kept saying Tom. Tom. Tom.

Maybe I’m being too tough on Hanks, who must have had to tone it back a little as to not steal the show from the story’s focus: Katharine Graham. As the first female publisher of a major American newspaper, she found herself thrown into the job at The Washington Post after the death of her husband. While she had no publishing or newspaper experience whatsoever, she did have one thing going for her: she was smart.

I’m not surprised that Streep was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Graham. I’m also not surprised she didn’t win. So much of her role depended on her brilliantly calculated mannerisms revealing passivity — allowing herself to be cut off from conversations, being ignored unless she was hosting one of her lavish social parties, taking on and off her glasses to show her constant hesitation. While she did break out of this mold during the last quarter of the film, I don’t think she received enough credit for portraying a character who was clearly trapped within a sphere she helped create and nurture. One two-letter word — “Go” — repeated over and over, finally breaks that sphere, releasing someone who would continue to protect the freedom of the press during the release of the Pentagon Papers and through the events following the break in at the Watergate building.

My biggest disappointment with the film was the decision skip the all of the testimony made during the Supreme Court hearing. A few minutes of being a fly on the courthouse wall would have been better than absolutely nothing. Even adding a simple scene would have filled the void — the director could have shown Graham’s daughter reading segments of her mother’s testimony to her granddaughters the next morning, saying “You grandmother said this to the highest court in the land.” That would have been better than her silently descending the courthouse steps while women silently looked at her in awe.

But the character who stole the show didn’t even have a real heartbeat, but it sure had a metaphorical one: the printing press. Watching the pre-press operators create headlines letter by letter, watching metal blocks become words then sentences then paragraphs, watching thousands of freshly printed newspapers ascend through the high ceilings for packaging, was simply a majestic sight. If you’ve never been in a newspaper office with the press running, watch this scene with great attention and listen for the heartbeat. Without a doubt, you’ll hear one.

Equally impressive was the film’s success in capturing the 1970s. From dropping quarters that were resting on top of pay phones to the wardrobe of protesters to the mention of taking $40 for the train ride from D.C. to NYC, yes, the film teleports the audience back to the ’70s. They are then eased back into modern day politics with former Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black’s justification for giving newspapers the right to publish the government’s papers, which he made just three months before his death: “In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.”

Out of five stars, I’m giving it a 4.5.

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