‘Ask E. Jean’ Is a Hagiographic Look at the Gonzo Writer Who Has Twice Bested Trump in Court

“Ask E. Jean” is a documentary that lands in the wake of a string of litigation successes for its octogenarian subject. The long-time magazine writer has twice defeated Mr. Trump before juries, who have awarded her $88 million on claims that she was sexually abused and defamed by him. The final word on those verdicts, though, appears destined to be decided at the Supreme Court. This film shows Ms. Carroll assiduously working the court of public opinion.The documentary, dedicated to “the fabulous life” of its subject, is hardly impartial. “Ask E. Jean” is most engaging as an account of the golden age of magazines — a time of glossy photographs, swaggering prose, and extravagant lunches that proved the making of not only Ms. Carroll but also of the man she would come to accuse. For nearly three decades Ms. Carroll sauntered through this world, finding her metier as a dispenser of advice.The film’s name comes from the name of Ms. Carroll’s advice column at Elle magazine, one of the longest running such features in American history. She also had a television show of the same name, clips of which — they make the 1990s look like a distant planet inhabited by even more distant relatives — are amply sampled in this documentary. Ms. Carroll wrote for “Saturday Night Live” and was Playboy’s first female editor. Seemingly only fate could be such an inspired matchmaker as to bring together Ms. Carroll, a former Miss Cheerleader USA, and the hardbitten Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. The Times called her “the female answer to Hunter Thompson,” and she wrote the biography of the author of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” Her account of his daily routine includes copious consumption of Chivas, cocaine, orange juice, acid and Chartreuse.Less providential was the encounter between Ms. Carroll and Mr. Trump. In 2019 she alleged in a lawsuit that he raped her in a Bergdorf-Goodman dressing room some 30 years earlier. He denies that encounter ever transpired, declaring that she was not his “type.” The documentary surfaces a videotaped deposition where Mr. Trump is shown a photograph of himself with Ms. Carroll and his first wife, Marla Maples. He confuses the two blonde women.‘Ask E. Jean.’ AbramoramaThe film’s director, Ivy Meeropol, backlights Ms. Carroll with a martyrs halo. She is a granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 for spying for the Soviet Union. Ms. Meeropol’s film about them, “Heir to an Execution,” was shortlisted for an Academy Award, and Ms. Meeropol has been a critic of Republicans long before Mr. Trump. Political slant aside, Ms. Carroll’s charisma would be catnip for any documentarian. Some of the most riveting footage in the documentary comes from those hours of depositions, especially when Ms. Carroll sits for one of Mr. Trump’s attorneys in the case, Alina Habba. Ms. Habba would go on to briefly serve in the 47th president’s Department of Justice and is an ally of Mr. Trump’s. She is also more than four decades younger than Ms. Carroll, and their confrontation surfaces divides that make the Grand Canyon look pipsqueak.Ms. Carroll has bested Mr. Trump in two separate court cases. The first, which ended with a $5 million jury verdict in May of 2023, determined that Mr. Trump was liable for sexually abusing and then defaming her. A second trial was launched after Mr. Trump repeatedly declared that she was lying about the underlying events. In January of 2024 a jury found him liable for a further $83 million for defamation. The presiding judge in both those trials, Lewis Kaplan, repeatedly locked horns with Mr. Trump, who called him “biased” and “totally hostile.” Judge Kaplan did not allow Mr. Trump to challenge the underlying facts of the incident in his second trial. He also ruled that the “finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”Mr. Trump has appealed the initial $5 million verdict to the Supreme Court, which has yet to decide whether to take up his appeal. Mr. Trump is also readying to appeal the second $83 million judgement against him. The Second United States Appeals Circuit has paused Mr. Trump’s obligation to pay Ms. Carroll for the pendency of his appeal, though interest is accruing with every passing day. The total obligation now sits at some $100 million. Mr. Trump has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to substitute the DOJ for himself as the defendant in the case. That would end the litigation, as the government cannot be sued for defamation. A documentary with Ms. Carroll and Mr. Trump at its contentious center, though, is invariably going to be seen through a political lens. Witness the production’s 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes — and the correspondingly critical comments. Ms. Carroll is both subject and narrator of this film, and some of its most gripping moments feature her coming to terms with her own transformation to avenging angel from breezy magazine writer.Ms. Carroll tells the filmmakers that “if women could see what kind of questions their fellow woman is asked when she brings charges of rape against a powerful man, it would stop a racehorse.” For her, the turning point was the #MeToo movement. Once those floodgates opened, she felt empowered to include Mr. Trump on her list of “hideous men.” The accusation was made in Ms. Carroll’s book “What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal.”Like the Gonzo writers who shaped Ms. Carroll, the line between life and copy has always been “more honored in the breach than the observance.” Last year she published “Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President,” an account of her two trials against Mr. Trump that zoomed to the top of the bestseller list. The book, written in the purple prose that carried Ms. Carroll to fame — and now, possibly fortune, insists that “a woman is never too old to get even.”

‘Ask E. Jean’ Is a Hagiographic Look at the Gonzo Writer Who Has Twice Bested Trump in Court

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