Bombshell - Review

Bombshell

“Bombshell” is a dramatic film directed by Jay Roach (“Trumbo” with Bryan Cranston) and written by Charles Randolph. The film stars Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie, and is based upon the 2016 accounts of several women at Fox News who set out to expose CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. Actors, Kate McKinnon, Connie Britton, Malcolm McDowell and Allison Janney appear in supporting roles.

REVIEW: Probably when this film was first green lighted for production, I wager the Lionsgate Studio research department had the unenviable task of compiling as much factual information to write a credible screenplay that was as close to the known truth as possible, minus accounts from actual witnesses who were probably legally bounded by a gauntlet of NDA’s (No Disclosure Agreements) and CAs (Confidential Agreements). So, with any finished film project dealing with such well-known real life subjects there is always going to be some aspects, especially behind the scenes, closed door, face to face dialogue that is going to be purely speculative at best. HOWEVER, if only half of this story is true (and I venture it probably is) I found “Bombshell” a solidly entertaining dramatization of how an unlikely group of broadcast women exposed FOX News founder and President Roger Ailes as a predatory sleazy CEO and took him down.  

Running 1:48 minutes the story tightly and equally revolves around Roger Ailes (John Lithgow), Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman), Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) and Kayla Pospisil (Margo Robbie) who was a fictional employee that was meant to represent a composite of several women working at FOX news at that time. And while Director Roach direction and pacing was a bit uneven at times, the principle actors collectively give the story its cohesiveness with serious, smart, pinpoint, sometimes riveting and other times humorous portrayals of women surviving in a whirlwind of sexual impropriety. A boorish and brutish environment where reasonable aspirations to working in front of the FOX News camera made high heels and short thigh high dresses a minimum mandatory accessory for the job, with an even more equal daunting Faustian Bargain to pleasing Roger Ailes on demand who brandished an iron hand authority all the time with unbridled corporate ruthlessness.

Cinematically overall I felt the film was at times was very powerful and other times retrained; willing to shake things up a bit but not so much that anything got so broken to open itself up to being politically partisan. It’s probably why Director Roach never gives any one of the female characters the final banner of being the lead heroin. But even with that fair minded approach the one aspect of this film that stood out the most for me was Charlize Theron’s “Megyn Kelly” which should easily garner her an Oscar Nomination as Best Actress. From her very first two seconds on the screen she not only captures the mannerism and cadence of Kelly’s way of communicating, smiling, and walking, she also without a scintilla of mimicry was able to replicate that very subtle faint smoky tinge of masculinity in her voice. Theron is absolutely brilliant in her performance, along with strong acting work by Robbie who could garner an Oscar Nomination as Best Supporting Actress, as well as some strong technical Oscar considerations for Best Set Design and Makeup Nominations.

In an odd way coming through the filter of Fox News, “Bombshell” is about having some broad open minded empathy for feminism. No matter the political views of anyone even these women at FOX news should have had the freedom to work where they wanted and not be harassed. No one should have to compromise their dreams verses having a career and these women had to. The film effectively captures that point of view and while not shedding any new light on the texture of the “ME TOO MOVEMENT”, it still effectively told this prominent known news story with layers of honest verisimilitude immersed in scenes of poetic justice, moral transcendence, brutality, sensitivity, astute perceptions and of course being “fair and balanced”.

Eeeeeh, but again, their story also very slyly, very surreptitiously and somewhat subliminally also asks the theater viewer to uniquely root almost 100% for these three women which in the end I was not so sure I could. After all it’s called making a Faustian Bargain aka “making a deal with the devil” for a reason and they knowingly did just a bit which ultimately makes this viewer just a little less empathetic in their case.

3.00 Stars