At first, I was amazed by the physical transformations of lead actresses Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, and Margot Robbie. I’m a huge fan of all three actresses and they had transformed into completely different women, and the sheer star power and screen presence of all three combined took a little getting used to. But what ‘Bombshell’ continues to do, scene after scene, is not just to riddle you with superb performances, but they catch you off-guard with its treatment of the true story of sexual harassment lawsuit that stripped Fox News head and founder Roger Ailes from power.
I don’t know why I was expecting a straightforward biopic, but I was and I was taken out of the experience when the film began with Charlize Theron playing Fox News Anchor Megyn Kelly breaking the fourth wall, and presenting the story like one would in a lifestyle segment of a television show. Theron’s magnificent and transformative performance coupled with the tongue-in-cheek manner with which the story unfolded took me by surprise.
I should’ve expected as much from director Jay Roach, who directed ‘Trumbo’ and the ‘Austin Power’ movies, and screenwriter Charles Randolph, who wrote ‘The Big Short.’ The light and comedic approach destabilized me because I knew what the film was about. It made me uncomfortable that a film about systemic sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace would be approached with such a light touch.
But the bait and switch here was that it was flippant in the way all the men in the movie were flippant about gender politics and “man-hating feminism,” as they were quick to judge Megyn Kelly and Gretchen Carlson, played by Nicole Kidman. I could see the set ups of the jokes and while people around me laughed; I couldn’t. I found the sexism and misogyny disgusting.
There were political jabs, for sure, since this felt like a liberal writing and portraying real people in Fox News, who are purveyors of the conservative and Republican ideals. Those made me laugh out loud, especially with the fictional character of Kayla Pospisil, played by Margot Robbie, who became a composite of the many different women who were also harassed and abused by Roger Ailes.
It was funny until it wasn’t. And that’s the most shocking turn of all. The film manages to capture the atmosphere of this environment that forced women to be so scared for their professional lives and for their own safety. Roach is excellent at cutting away immediately to stolen glances and the side-eye. Within this world, he manages to highlight the way the world judges and puts pressure on women for saying anything or staying silent.
Roach and Randolph masterfully switches mode from lifestyle show to full-on movie, letting the characters break the fourth wall and narrate when we need context for what transpires next.
Because ‘Bombshell’ is exactly that. This may have happened in 2016, during the US presidential election, and highly publicized too, but with the way that film lays it out, coupled with superb performances all around by Theron, Kidman, Robbie, and John Lithgow, who plays Roger Ailes, and an ensemble that includes Kate McKinnon, Connie Britton, Mark Duplass, Robin Weigert, D’arcy Carden, and Oscar winner Allison Janney, the overall effect hits hard like a bomb exploding.
This is the kind of movie that truly wakes you up by highlighting how even the smallest things can be so insidious and damaging. Knowing that this actually happened and that situations like these are still happening around the world justifies the existence of this film, and how I wish more and more people got to see it.
Roach, Randolph, and the whole cast and crew managed to create a film that should disarm, rattle, and jolt its audience awake while still be massively entertaining, and allowing some superb performances from women to really just take center stage.
My Rating:
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