Ask E Jean review – Trump survivor turns out to be tougher than he thought as she fights on

By Peter Bradshaw · The Guardian Culture

Ivy Meeropol’s engrossing film follows former star columnist E Jean Carroll, now in her 80s, battles through an unfinished series of legal disputes Donald Trump has almost succeeded in an insidiously sneaky trick of auto-uncancelling on the #MeToo issue, implying that he is above and beyond and constitutionally exempt, despite being caught on tape boasting of sexual violence. Through a combination of bluster, bad faith, threats, abuse and the simple fact of being US president and flooding the zone on a grander international stage, and moreover with an aggressive army of online trolls at his disposal, he has got away with it. So far. But among his accusers, the one who has so far been successful in two civil suits is the journalist and former advice columnist E Jean Carroll, showing remarkable courage and indomitable good humour. She is the subject of this engrossing documentary from film-maker Ivy Meeropol, co-produced by former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, who incidentally has perhaps a few hail marys of his own to offer for having at first ducked the Jeffrey Epstein story . Carroll had an uproarious career in New York media in the 80s and 90s, in which she was a wisecracking Rosalind Russell-slash-Joan Rivers figure, creating a tough broad persona; she was in fact sometimes less than sympathetic to Paula Jones and Anita Hill in the Bill Clinton and Clarence Thomas cases. Carroll had a TV advice show called Ask E Jean (given to her, as she points out without comment, by the notorious exec Roger Ailes, himself an abuser brought low by #MeToo) . Continue reading...