Bombshell



Fox News was for a while embroiled in a sexual harassment case when Gretchen Carlson sued the company and specifically the CEO Roger Ailes. Carlson in this film is played by Nicole Kidman, and Fox anchor Megyn Kelly is played by Charlize Theron—earning an Oscar Nomination for Best Actress. This is because the story’s arc is Kelly’s ascent to anchoring her own show and her later confirmation that she too had been on the receiving end of Ailes’ threatening advances—in the power dynamic acquiescing to him meant promotion. So it allegedly is with Weinstein and many others. The problem is apparently rife in any business where men have power over subordinate women, and so this is a timely piece. Roger Ailes is played by John Lithgow, and although he is an odious figure we can rest assured that John Lithgow is not.

When Kelly is fired from Fox & Friends (Donald Trump’s favourite programme) she unexpectedly sues for sexual harassment and the event—which seems an unlikely individual strike against a mighty corporate organisation. The same screenwriter who gave us The Big Short does another quirky explanation of how big the Fox empire is using Megyn Kelly standing next to a massive office block. And yet this story of individual power is quietly satisfying as within a few days Ailes is thrown into a rapidly descending spiral that ends with him being fired by Rupert Murdoch (Malcolm McDowell—looking exactly like Murdoch)

The film is expansive and talky. Megyn Kelly breaks the fourth wall as a narrator at the beginning as well as keeping the story together in voice-over throughout. As a performance it is incredible because with repeated use of archive footage it is incredible how closely Theron resembles Kelly. 
Nicole Kidman is practically unrecognisable. Kelly’s coverage of the Republican National Convention led to then nominee Donald Trump launching an all-night-long Twitter tirade as well as making some disgusting remarks in interview. Ailes and Kelly get on and he is supportive of her, and she is avowedly not “a feminist, I’m a lawyer.” So her story arc is particularly interesting although probably not unusual.

The film is subtly political, as you’d expect in a story about Fox News around the time of Donald Trump’s ascent to President. He is a background character but the ladies who unite in their action against Ailes are not portrayed in a way that’s fist-pumping or anti-establishment. Margot Robbie, the third person, plays a character based on several unnamed women whose experiences are applied to Kayla Popisil, whose story is the most emotionally raw because she is the youngest and most inexperienced person to be preyed upon by Ailes—the most difficult scene involves those too, and although there is nothing gratuitous here the tone of nastiness is ever present around Ailes scenes: either one-to-one with women victims or in larger groups being odious and loud. The film also includes lower level sexism from men to women and successfully demonstrates how individual women group together to fight the system with the law, and to not accept the ‘everyday’ sexism which may seem like a compliment.


This is a fascinating back-office drama based on an actual situation—and a horrible one at that. It can be funny and it can be devastating, and is overall quite slick and very talky. Not necessarily a must-see other than for some terrific performances: especially Theron and Robbie.

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