The well-connected Auletta draws on the work of those journalists and his own interviews with major players, including many surely fascinating hours with the beleaguered brother Bob. As for Harvey, he emails some terse responses to questions, and his representatives haggle over possible interview conditions before ghosting his biographer — but Hollywood Ending also mines an extensive profile Auletta wrote of him 20 years ago, and its outtakes ... Going along for the ride of Weinstein’s slow rise and fall, even with the able Auletta at one’s side, can feel even more dispiriting, like getting on one of those creaky roller coasters at a faded municipal playland.

... deeply researched ... Auletta is perhaps most effective when describing the inner workings of Miramax ... The author succeeds in his goal of conveying that Weinstein had talent and was 'more than a monster'. But Auletta’s attempt to discover the 'hole in [Weinstein’s] psyche' that compelled him to such monstrous behaviour comes up short.

Auletta certainly does not ignore the victims...But in hunting for Weinstein’s 'Rosebud,' Auletta both aggrandizes the monstrous mogul (by analogizing his megalomania to Citizen Kane) and extends the cultural conversation around the perpetrator and what makes him tick ... Who cares? As anyone who’s ever seen a horror movie knows, ex post facto explanations of the monster’s pathology are beside the point ... Like all of Auletta’s work, Hollywood Ending is thoroughly researched and eminently readable. Auletta is a highly skilled journalist whose ability to assemble compelling narratives from scores of sources helps him craft well-rounded characters and juicy prose ... By exploring Harvey’s relationship with his brother and other men, Auletta humanizes the monster, which makes his approach feel fundamentally misguided ... Auletta admirably addresses that shortcoming in his book and praises Kantor, Twohey and Farrow for eventually breaking the story he couldn’t. Yet Hollywood Ending persists in emphasizing the same bullying behavior Auletta uncovered in 2002: temper tantrums, verbal abuse of staff and colleagues, and profligate eating, smoking and spending. Perhaps this is the Harvey that Auletta knows best, or perhaps Auletta is quietly reasserting the significance of his 2002 profile and the revelations it contained...Either way, I found myself wondering why I should care about Weinstein’s corporate power struggles ... a finely crafted biography of an ignominious sexual predator. It is not a prurient book, yet I could never stop questioning its approach to its subject. Like most true-crime reporting, it exists because women suffered. Yet its main topic is neither those survivors nor the noble reporters and prosecutors who ended a monster’s reign of terror. It is, still, the monster himself ... So read Hollywood Ending if you’re interested in how power is amassed and exploited in the U.S. film industry, but don’t read it expecting answers about sexual violence or how to stop it. The monster has nothing to teach you.

Auletta makes a compelling case for Weinstein’s tenacity and cunning developing early ... Auletta places a curious emphasis on Weinstein’s schlubbiness, often commenting on his weight, eating habits and poor sartorial choices. While this does add colour to the prose, it makes Weinstein look like a cartoon villain from one of the thrillers he distributed rather than the very real, very cruel man he was ... This is a curious choice of blame — plenty of men with childhoods worse than Weinstein’s live life without sexually assaulting anyone. Yet this colourful biography diligently paints a picture of a world where Weinstein was simply too big to fail; bringing him down threatened to topple too many dominoes.

Auletta delivers a compelling, assiduously reported, full-formed biography of Weinstein ... Auletta is keenly sensitive here to the 'long half-life of trauma' these many women experienced, yet also unsparingly graphic in detailing how Weinstein would entrap his victims, enabled by a host of individuals and forces that allowed such monstrous behavior to continue unchallenged for so long. A definitive, unblinking account of sexual abuse and violence in the American movie history.

Auletta acknowledges Weinstein’s tremendous drive and effect on Hollywood and probes the psychology that might lie behind his actions. This gives his portrait of Weinstein vital depth. Well-researched and packed with detail—possibly too packed for some readers, who may find the thorough recounting of Weinstein’s assaults, boardroom wars, and trial procedures results in information overload ... As a comprehensive account of the rise and fall of the Weinstein name, Auletta’s volume is a critical text and worthy of sitting beside Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor’s She Said.

Auletta’s deep familiarity with the film industry serves him well in depicting the making, marketing, and reception of the Weinsteins’ movies. Aiming to portray Weinstein as 'more than a monster,' the author offers ample evidence that he is a sociopath ... An authoritative, sordid biography.