Bombshell (2019)

Directed by: Jay Roach | 108 minutes | drama | Actors: Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, John Lithgow, Allison Janney, Malcolm McDowell, Kate McKinnon, Connie Britton, Liv Hewson, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Rob Delaney, Mark Duplass, Stephen Root, Robin Weigert, Amy Landecker, Mark Moses, Nazanin Boniadi, Ben Lawson, Josh Lawson

Even before Harvey Weinstein’s head went on the chopping block and Bill Cosby ended up behind bars for a minimum of three and a maximum of ten years, the conservative American television network Fox News had already revealed a huge #MeToo scandal. Fox isn’t already known for being very female-friendly (for example, the station is partly responsible for übersexist Donald Trump becoming president of the US in 2016) but when talk show host Gretchen Carlson revealed in early July 2016 that she had been fired for refusing to go in. At the advances of CEO Roger Ailes and taking him to court, the cesspool slowly opened up and several female stars of the station, and behind-the-scenes staff, came out with stories of sexual harassment. Fox’s culture of conservatism, male supremacy and fear allowed him to get away with it for years. The scandal surrounding Ailes and Fox News was embraced in the predominantly left-wing Hollywood as a grateful subject and so it happened that within six months both a miniseries (‘The Loudest Voice’) and a feature film (‘Bombshell’) about the events appeared. While ‘The Loudest Voice’ spans a longer span of time to outline how Ailes became one of the most powerful men in conservative America, ‘Bombshell’ (2019) focuses on the final stages of Ailes’ Fox CEO and his demise.

‘Bombshell’ tells the story from three different angles. First of all, there’s Megyn Kelly (an almost unrecognizable Charlize Theron), one of Fox News’ great female stars who challenged Donald Trump during a Republican debate about his misogynistic rhetoric, something you have to have the balls for in the conservative stronghold that is Fox. Then there’s Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman), who sees her career crumble after refusing to accept the advances of Roger Ailes (John Lithgow, who cleverly balances between paternalism on the one hand, and eerily power-hungry on the other); first she is reverted to the poorly viewed afternoon hours, after which she is taken off the tube completely. She decides to file a lawsuit against her former employer and hopes that other women will also share their story. However, she encounters a lot of fear: women do not want to support her openly because they are afraid of reprisals: their careers are at stake. Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie) has actually just joined Fox and is very ambitious. Just how far she’s willing to go for that coveted shot at making it to Fox News is revealed when she’s invited to a closed-door one-on-one interview in Ailes’ office.

‘Bombshell’ discusses a theme that should make us feel uncomfortable, but director Jay Roach (mainly known for wafer-thin comedies like the ‘Austin Powers’ series, ‘Meet the Parents’ (2000), ‘Meet the Fockers’ (2004) ) and ‘Dinner for Schmucks’ (2010)) keep it much too light and airy. Only at times does it get uncomfortable, like in the one scene where Theron, Kidman and Robbie can be seen together, when they are in the elevator. Eyes cross warily, you can read in their eyes that they wonder ‘Could she too…?’. Their relationships with Ailes are all slightly different, but in all three he has crossed the boundaries of the professional. But nobody dares to say anything about it, they are so afraid that their career is at risk, that is how independent they are. Another scene in which Roach manages to hit the oppressive atmosphere is the one in which Kayla (a fictional character based on several existing (former) Fox employees) has to ‘audition’ with Ailes. “Take a spin,” he asks her. ‘Television is a visual medium’. But then he asks her to lift her skirt, higher and higher, until her underwear is exposed. Robbie plays an ambitious yet naive woman who at first eagerly obeys, but her enthusiasm soon fades as she feels cornered, peered and fearful and has no idea where to look. As a viewer, you realize that all those other women who have made careers at Fox News have all had to endure this humiliation – and who knows what else. And that’s what a movie like this should aim to achieve, you might think.

Unfortunately, these kinds of intrusive scenes are in the minority. What is also remarkable is that the focus seems to be on Megyn Kelly, while it is really Gretchen Carlson who, as a whistleblower, stuck her neck out first. Also in the make-up department, Theron took precedence over Kidman, because where the former looks exactly like the real Megyn Kelly, Kidman is left with a bad wig and a fake chin. And she’s the only one who gets away with it, because otherwise the grime is of a particularly high level (see, for example, Lithgow’s transformation and Malcolm McDowell’s almost indistinguishable from real media tycoon Rupert Murdoch). Maybe it has to do with the fact that Carlson was already assigned a lead role in ‘The Loudest Voice’? Although Kidman is of course not interested in that, she is not in the miniseries after all. Kidman is rarely bad, but it is striking that she plays second fiddle here and is outshone by both Theron and Robbie, who have been assigned more interesting scenes. ‘Bombshell’ wants to bring a heavy theme to the attention in a light-hearted way, but only slowly succeeds in doing so. Perhaps a director like Adam McKay (‘The Big Short’, 2015 and ‘Vice’, 2018) would have succeeded better in making it a smooth, humorous film that nevertheless takes the subject and its weight seriously. This version of Jay Roach looks nice, but doesn’t impress.