Bombshell is directed by Jay Roach, and gives us the perspective of Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) at the time Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman), a former news anchor at Fox News, sued Roger Ailes (John Lithgow), the founder and chief executive at Fox News, for sexual harassment. Kelly, arguably the most influential Fox News anchor, is caught in the middle of defending her boss, and mentor, or finding the truth. Carlson is adamant Ailes is a series offender, and her lawsuit will be clinched by other employees coming forward with similar allegations. Margot Robbie plays Kayla Pospisil, a young producer with ambitions of hosting her own show, who works to show us the seedy ways in which Ailes can behave with new talent, subjected to it herself.
Charlize Theron’s make-up is impeccable. I thought I was watching the real Megyn Kelly throughout the entire movie. It must have been fun finding the faces to play dress-up as the familiar Fox News anchors, and most of them are matched really well. John Lithgow wears a fat suit to resemble Ailes. Beyond the main cast, I was impressed with the supporting players that included some actors I haven’t seen in a long time; namely, Jennifer Morrison, John de Lancie and Holland Taylor. I’ve always liked Kate McKinnon without enjoying the majority of her acting roles (figure that out) but hallelujah, she is excellent as the liberal lesbian at Fox News. Her role is small, but is important to give Margot Robbie’s character someone to bounce off within her emotional scenes. Rob Delaney is also acknowledgeable as a producer, aiding Kelly through the controversy and sensationalism of Carlson’s allegations.
I’ve only known snippets of Megyn Kelly’s career that have made it outside American network television, but my impression of Kelly before seeing Bombshell was that she was the toughest and most widely respected female anchor Fox ever had. I understand she continued her career after the events of this movie at NBC News, but wasn’t as successful. I knew nothing of the rest of the main characters represented in this film, including Roger Ailes and how he had been accused of indecency; perhaps I’ve been living under a rock! I was aware that Fox & Friends, the news channel’s morning show, had a reputation of ignoring sexually charged comments made towards its female hosts, and the movie shows a montage of incidents Gretchen Carlson endured. The movie also establishes the controversy between Megyn Kelly and Republican Candidate Donald Trump, and how a tweet firestorm after a presidential debate led to an unheralded spotlight on Kelly; I was aware of that.
Bombshell is looking to tell a big story, and you can tell there’s a lot of ground to cover to get a sense of the time at Fox News. The movie had a lot to juggle in the first act, going in many directions to set up Fox News as a workplace, Kelly’s perspective on her feud with Trump, Carlson’s views on the objectification of women, the previous cases of sexual harassment and Margot Robbie’s character. The style of the picture doesn’t help it flow, and conflicts with itself, with some quirky forth-wall breaks (like that in The Big Short to further explain a particular moment), but with super serious stuff to follow. I liked the scene involving an incident that led to the first case of sexual harassment levelled at the news corporation, where we hear the woman’s thoughts contradicting her words as she tries to navigate her way out of career suicide after her boss makes a move on her, but that technique is never used again, and feels out of place. The few times the movie uses humour fall flat. Bombshell feels disjointed, and it may have something to do with a sense that the characters, especially those played by Charlize Theon and Margot Robbie, feel like they’re in different movies – the uber-realism of Megyn Kelly contradicts Kayla Pospisil, who looks like Margot Robbie; perhaps a lesser known actress would have quashed that problem. I had my doubts that Kayla was even a real person, and on delving into the development of this movie so I could accurately write about it, I confirmed that she is not; she is an amalgamation of women who made allegations against Ailes, and so Bombshell really is a composite of fact and fiction. I further assumed Kelly was made the lead because she must’ve written the book that made the basis for this movie, since Carlson had signed away her rights to speak about the matter, but it’s not the case and there is no book – Bombshell is a script organised by a studio. That being said, I feel like this movie would have worked better if it had solely focused on any of the three main women instead of having them share the load. I get that the movie is wanting to explore the sexual harassment fallout from all angles, but the women sort’ve take rigid turns developing their perspectives, with all of them disappearing for long stretches of the movie. Bombshell would have made more sense if it was Gretchen Carlson’s story since she is the outspoken voice who makes the legal move on Ailes.
It’s weird to see true events play out on the big screen that happened so recently too. This is the first movie I can recall to take a retrospective look at Trump’s run to Republican Leader – it feels too soon; Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016, and this movie is only coming out four years later, earlier if you’re elsewhere. Even though the movie is really about sexual harassment at Fox, I can’t help but feel that another decade might have helped give this movie’s story a better understanding of its place in time. Carlson ends the movie, saying she hopes to be the one that makes it okay for other women to come forward with their sexual harassment claims, so perhaps that is the main reason for the urgency with which this movie got made; understandable.
For me, Bombshell fails to be as engaging as it should be. It might have something to do with me being an Australian looking into the American News cycle from afar, and a better recognition of all the characters in play would have definitely helped me enjoy the movie more. Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie stand out for their performances, with John Lithgow and Nicole Kidman not that far behind. A well-acted, yet muddled take on true events.
3.0
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