I had planned to begin this review with a list of the most headline-grabbing facts in Hollywood Ending, Ken Auletta’s meticulous account of Harvey Weinstein’s rise and fall in the movie industry. This, I figured, is what most readers want from any review of a book like this: the gossip, the salaciousness, the sleaze. I certainly do.
So I’m sorry to disappoint you, but my plan went south. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of appalling dirt on Weinstein on almost every page. But if you read or watched the coverage of his 2020 trial for rape and sexual assault, you know the worst of it. And frankly I can’t see anyone who skipped the trial or ignored the exposés in the media that precipitated it caring enough about Harvey Weinstein now to read a 456-page book, no matter how tawdry or well-researched it is.
Of course, Auletta puts it all neatly together, so you get the 100 women who accused Weinstein of assault and rape for the last 30 or 40 years. You get plenty of examples of Weinstein screaming and verbally abusing… well, pretty much everyone. How he ate like a pig, how he smelled like shit. And how he lied, especially about his sexual abuses, to everyone who mattered in his world, including his brother and lifelong business partner, Bob Weinstein.
