E. Jean Carroll Doc de E. Jean Carroll

Perhaps the most striking revelation in the new documentary about the writer E. Jean Carroll is how magnetic she is. Either in the voice fragments of your writing, clips of your interview program of the mid -90s or interviews of the present, what shines during the day is your personality: curious, naughty and sincere, without pretensions and either without warmth.

Her charism can be a surprise if, like many people in 2025, you know her mainly for being one of Donald Trump’s accusers. In Ask E. JeanNow releasing in Telluride, the fact of that surprise becomes his own minor tragedy: here is a fascinating woman in his own right, distilled in the public imagination to the crime of another person. In that sense, the documentary led by Ivy Meeropol could be a corrective step. While Trump takes the case as his center of gravity, he also paints a broader (although still incomplete and imperfect) of a much more interesting figure than the bad that happened.

While Carroll had been known for his writing long before his accusation, particularly she Elle Magazine Council Column Ask E. Jean – She was catapulted in a new level of public scrutiny in 2019 when she added her name to the expanding list of women who allege that Trump, the man who once boasted “grab[bing] ‘Em by the pussy “, had sexually assaulted them. Specifically, she informed that she had raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman costumes around 1995; Trump not only denied her story, but that she described a liar, mocking that she was not her” guy. “Carroll sued him for abuse and defamation and finally became the only accuser of Trump who defeated him in the court. He received a total of $ 88.3 million in damages (of which the documentary notes have not seen a penny).

Meeropol focuses on the meticulous story of the incident of the Carroll incident and that are turned through the stomach, a large part of their deposition audiences, complemented with audio fragments of its 2019 audiobook of 2019 Why do we need men? or past and present interviews. But the facts of the case are well known to anyone who worries about knowing them. So are the broader challenges faced by the survivors of rapes who dare to speak: skepticism, judgment, stigma. What really stands out in Ask E. Jean They are the details of the center of the right in the center, technically lower but devastatingly vivid.

In a present day scene (ISH), Carroll remembers her best friend, the writer Lisa Birnbach, what she called her after trying to deal with the situation. “If I tell you what happened, you’ll laugh,” Carroll recalls thinking, “and then I will feel great, and then we will both be happy.” Birnbach responded with horror, encouraging Carroll to go to the police.

In another, captured in the period prior to the first trial, Carroll explains, with his exclusive openness, one of the great challenges he faces: “Who in a jury will believe that an 80 -year -old woman is fucking? Nobody.” If Carroll was attractive enough then or now he should not matter, but she and her lawyers (led by Robbie Kaplan) know very well as. Therefore, it makes a point of hiring the same hair and makeup stylist with which he worked in the 90s, Lisa Corelli, so that it looks as possible as possible at that time.

As Ask E. Jean It tracks its cases, it also brings together a non -chronological image of who is and was beyond Trump: the career of the University, the tasks of journalism of Gonzo, the nights of Sambradas de Martini in Elaine’s, the column of long -term tips in Elle (What Carroll notes ended in 2020: “A magazine for women shoot a woman for confronting a powerful man? As we say in the fashion world, it is not a good look”). Briefly, the film becomes a melancholic celebration of the apogee of brilliant magazines; As a writer who grew late enough to see him give way to digital media, he would happily have seen a complete film about those years related with the fun and intrepid voice of Carroll.

Meeropol uses on -screen subtitles and dates in moderation, which can make Carroll’s flow of life a bit difficult to track. More disconcerting is needed than you should discover where in the timeline place a briefly mentioned seasonal writing for Saturday Night LiveOr a second abruptly revealed marriage, not to mention the many archive television clips of the 90s, most of them of their short -term interview program, also titled Ask E. Jean.

Even so, broad blows are obvious enough so that we can see how the attitudes, those of Carroll and culture in general, have changed over the decades. The Carroll of the 90s appears in a news program to make fun that Anita Hill and Paula Jones are “wimps” for not having dealt with their aggressors “in the act.” She advises a guest who “always press the charges”, and another who puts aside his guilt for being raped, advice that Carroll himself will have difficulty following. When a much less charitable filmmaker could frame the contradiction as a gotcha, Meeropol framed it as an evolution in thought. Carroll, in its typically clear and clear voice, does not make words when asked why he did not denounce Trump: “He did not have the guts.”

#Metoo was needed to inspire Carroll to finally present themselves with their history, and both she and the film frame her battle against Trump as a victory not only for her good name but for the cause of the victims everywhere: “We have to realize that this victory has to continue.” But for the better it is the feeling, it feels out of the rhythm of the current moment. While it is worth telling Carroll’s story independently, Ask E. Jean It limits itself by clinging to a thesis that seems that it has not been updated since filming began half decade. Instead of approaching the virulent reaction in which we are now, he retires in a tentative optimism that disagrees with Carroll’s attitude that otherwise Tell-it-it is.

Yeah Ask E. Jean That final triumph cannot land, however, it succeeds in defending Carroll herself, with her singular voice and her historical career, as a woman worth paying attention to who is beyond the victim or the tropes of heroes, the headlines have relegated her so frequently. It may not be the broader social exchange rate that Carroll is working. But it is a minor victory, anyway.