Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus frame Cover-Up as not just a portrait of Seymour Hersh but also an accusation that American news culture repeatedly shields power until forced to do otherwise.
The documentary revisits Hersh’s biggest stories, My Lai, Abu Ghraib, CIA domestic spying, and the secret bombing of Cambodia, as recurring examples of atrocities that major outlets initially resisted, minimized, or tried to rationalize.
The film’s opening stretch sets the tone with Hersh in late-career mode, shuttling between calls and documents while recounting how his Vietnam reporting ran through a small antiwar news service before bigger papers reluctantly followed.
That choice underlines one of the movie’s harshest claims: that what gets branded as “dishonest media” often looks more like nervous institutions worried about patriotism, advertiser comfort, and access until a story’s momentum makes silence impossible.
Cover-Up leans heavily on archival footage, from Nixon-era panic over Hersh’s scoops to images from Abu Ghraib and more recent material from Gaza, to show a repeating pattern of denial, pushback, and belated accountability.
Time magazine’s background on the film notes that Poitras and Obenhaus even secured on-camera testimony from Camille Lo Sapio, a previously anonymous source behind the Abu Ghraib photos, reinforcing how much risk falls on individuals while large outlets weigh reputational damage.
At the same time, reviewers at outlets like Screen Rant and the Wall Street Journal stress that Poitras refuses to turn Hersh into a simple heroic monument.
The documentary includes his controversial Nord Stream pipeline story, which relied on a single anonymous source and drew strong skepticism from peers, as a way of asking when skepticism toward “dishonest media” veers into its own blind spots.
When Newsrooms Blink: Self‑Censorship, Access, And American Myth
One of Cover-Up’s sharpest threads concerns self-censorship, the quiet editorial instinct to soften or sideline stories that cast the United States as an aggressor rather than a defender.
Rotten Tomatoes’ overview points out that Poitras and Obenhaus are less interested in biography than in using Hersh’s reporting as a running test of how far mainstream media will go before it flinches.
Critics at Jacobin and Asia Society have long argued that Hersh’s work exposed not only specific crimes but also the way official narratives get laundered into conventional wisdom through friendly coverage.
The documentary echoes those debates, showing how his revelations about biological weapons tests that killed thousands of sheep or abuse inside Abu Ghraib were initially met by major outlets repeating military denials almost word for word.
A Time feature on the film frames Hersh’s early Chicago reporting as his training ground for spotting how police and political power shape what gets written, long before Vietnam turned him into a national figure.
Cover Up (Credit: Netflix)
That context matters because Cover-Up keeps cutting between the past and the present Gaza campus protests and the war on terror to argue that institutional pressures on journalists have not disappeared, only become more sophisticated.
The documentary and its reviewers also draw a line from Hersh’s era to current fights over “embedded” reporters, national security leaks, and whistleblower prosecutions.
By revisiting threats against sources and the constant risk of losing access, the film suggests that dishonesty is rarely a cartoonish fabrication; it is more often a series of small compromises that, over time, leave the harshest truths outside the frame.
Hero Or Hazard: How Cover-Up Handles The Hersh Debate
Poitras already has a reputation for politically charged documentaries, and early reviews highlight how Cover-Up continues that streak while allowing space for doubt about its central figure.
The Guardian describes the film as a tense, tightly structured argument that America’s violent record abroad is inseparable from the media’s reluctance to confront it, yet it also acknowledges that Hersh’s later work raises real questions about sourcing and confirmation.
Screen Rant’s review, which coined the “dishonest media under the microscope” framing, praises the film for showcasing Hersh’s determination but criticizes it for sidestepping some of the deepest concerns about whether he sometimes shapes facts to fit his expectations.
Those concerns are most visible in the Nord Stream segment, where the movie presents both the impact of his allegations and the discomfort among journalists who feel his evidentiary standards have shifted with age and status.
Netflix’s own description of Cover-Up calls it a “political thriller” about one man’s fight to expose institutional violence, a marketing line that fits neatly with Poitras’s storytelling instincts.
Original Cin’s coverage of the documentary stresses Hersh’s age and stamina: at 88, he is still chasing sources, still distrusted by governments, and still controversial among fellow reporters.
Seen through that lens, Cover-Up lands as both a tribute and a provocation, forcing audiences to wrestle with a messy idea that one journalist’s flaws do not erase the failures of the institutions that often tried hardest to ignore him.
Sydney Sweeney steps into the role of Millie , a parolee scraping by after a decade behind bars for a manslaughter charge from her teen years.
She lands a live-in gig at the lavish Long Island home of Nina and Andrew Winchester, tending to their young daughter, Cece, and scrubbing surfaces in a mansion that screams old money control.
What starts as a lifeline turns sour fast when Nina’s mood swings hit, from PTA meltdowns to outright mind games that lock Millie in an attic room with a door that bolts only from the outside.
Amanda Seyfried owns the screen as Nina, dialing up the erratic housewife to levels that blend horror absurdity with mean-girl precision. Her performance draws raves for turning potential camp into something genuinely unnerving, outshining Sweeney’s more subdued start before the actress ramps up in the final act.
Brandon Sklenar plays Andrew as the charming husband whose kindness hides sharper edges, fueling the sexual tension that pulls Millie in despite red flags everywhere. Director Paul Feig, fresh off suburban thrillers like A Simple Favor, leans into the genre’s lurid roots with gasp moments that land big in theaters.
Audience reactions exploded online right after release, with crowds laughing at over-the-top dialogue during screenings and praising the film’s unapologetic excess. Rotten Tomatoes shows 75% from critics, but a verified audience score hovering at 92% from over 1,000 reviews, calling it certified fresh and a popcornmeter hit.
Fans of Freida McFadden’s 2022 bestseller pack Reddit threads, debating how the movie captures the book’s slow-burn dread while cranking the visuals for screen impact.
Twists That Flip the Script
The story builds on class clashes, with Millie’s outsider status clashing against the Winchesters’ pristine facade, where every locked door and strict rule hints at deeper traps. Early hints about Nina’s past psychiatric stay and a near-drowning incident with Cece paint her as unstable, while Andrew seems like the steady rescuer.
Millie falls for his attention during a city night out that ends in betrayal, only for the big reveal to shatter assumptions: Nina faked the crazy to bait Andrew’s true abusive nature, hiring Millie precisely because her criminal past makes her the perfect weapon.
The movie changes up the gore and pace from the book, swapping psychological punishments like balancing books on the stomach for visceral body horror that cements the horror shift.
The Housemaid (Credit: Pretty Dangerous Pictures)
A shattered heirloom plate triggers Andrew’s attic lockdown on Millie, demanding she carve lines into her skin with shards to “earn” freedom, a scene that trades book subtlety for screen shock. Cece plays a bigger role too, signaling Nina to rescue Millie, which centers the women and child against the men, unlike the novel’s reliance on groundskeeper Enzo.
That climax delivers chaos: Millie stabs Andrew with a cheese knife, forces him to yank a tooth with pliers, then shoves him down the spiral staircase during a scuffle. Police buy the lightbulb accident cover story, nudged by an officer with ties to Andrew’s violent history.
The close loops back wickedly, with Nina sending Millie, check in hand, to another bruised housewife’s interview, teasing sequel bait from the trilogy.
Why It Hits Despite the Haters
Critics split hairs , with some like Roger Ebert noting it misses full tawdry silliness and feels choppy in edits, while others hail it as a sly nod to old-school thrillers ruling multiplexes.
Detractors gripe about plot holes and Swiss-cheese logic, but that’s the point of this guilty pleasure: it thrives on outrageous pulp, not airtight realism. Box office buzz and high audience scores prove viewers crave the ride, especially with Seyfried’s force-of-nature turn earning Oscar whispers.
Book-to-movie shifts make it pop visually, turning quiet control into loud paranoia, like a police car chase over Millie’s shopping humiliation, absent the novel’s subtler stalking.
This amps accessibility for newcomers, who then hit the page for colder chills, while fans appreciate nods to legacy China over baby clothes cruelty. Social media lights up with theater stories of unintended laughs amid tension, underscoring how the film owns its camp without apology.
At 131 minutes, it balances drama and shocks, confronting abuse head-on yet risking trivialization through excess, per some reviews. Still, the moral slipperiness shines: no pure innocents, just shifting victims and predators in a home where money shields cruelty.
For anyone dismissing it as brainless, the real hook lies in that unease long after the credits roll, questioning facades in everyday privilege. Viewers keep showing up, proving this deranged take delivers thrills that stick, flaws and all.
