Ask E. Jean

A mesmerizing character profile on finding one’s courage in the #MeToo era, centered on one of its most compelling media figures — celebrated magazine editor and longtime advice columnist E. Jean Carroll.

Directed by Ivy Meeropol, Ask E. Jean dives directly into the deep-end of its subject, opening with shocking videotape footage from Carroll’s 2019 deposition for her defamation lawsuit against Donald J. Trump, who repeatedly called her a liar across interviews and social media after she revealed in New York magazine that he sexually assaulted her during a visit to Bergdorf Goodman department store in Midtown Manhattan in the mid-1990s.

Carroll’s reluctance to come forward feels sadly ironic for a celebrated advice columnist who built a reputation on dispensing candid wisdom faster than a gunslinger at the O.K. Corral. Perhaps the hardest advice to follow is often the counsel we give ourselves.

Yet what makes ASK E. JEAN so invigorating is that Meeropol never frames her subject as a supine victim. Instead, the documentary becomes a fascinating portrait of a fearless, self-made woman whose moxie, candor, and fierce independence carried her from humble beginnings in Montana to becoming one of New York’s most recognizable media personalities.

There is no Hallmark Movie denouement here — no sentimental retreat from the big city to rekindle a small-town love and simpler living. Rather, Carroll stayed, fought, and shaped her own destiny on her own terms with grit, boldness, verve, and endless chutzpah.

Whether recounting her adventures through journalism, her friendships with Lisa Birnbach, Carol Martin, even Hunter S. Thompson, or embracing a kind of gonzo spirit toward life itself, Carroll emerges as endlessly charismatic: funny, adventurous, wounded, and unbreakably resilient all at once.

Meeropol wisely balances Carroll’s buoyant personality against the horrifying details of her assault and the years-long public campaign to discredit her. The...