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Making movies about controversial characters is hard. The burden gets heavier when it’s a circus of controversial characters. It’s even tougher when they are alive. And it’s near-impossible when they are still in the public sub-conscience.
However, Bombshell, manages to tell a slightly dramatised behind-the-scenes story of the first Me Too sexual harassment scandal that shook Fox News network, with a phenomenal cast, giving audiences a sneak peek at the drama behind the drama.
Let me start off by acknowledging that this movie won’t do well, numbers-wise, in Bahrain at least. Not only has the country not had any similar sensational scandals, it simply doesn’t have the requisite number of action and explosions.
But for a political junkie like myself, it’s akin to a Star Wars nerd listening to the director’s commentary. And as a journalist albeit a male one, it is thought-provoking to observe the juxtaposition between reporting on a story and then becoming the story.
The movie starts off in 2016 with a fourth-wall-ripping monologue by Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) giving us a quick purview of the inner power dynamics of the network. It works on two levels – not only does it bring the uninitiated up to the speed of conservative cable news, it is also a stark reminder that at Fox News, there are always cameras watching.
Charlize Theron has always excelled at simply slipping into whatever character she is playing, ranging from serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster to Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road. This is no different. At times, I had to do a double take just to make sure the movie wasn’t use archival footage of Megyn Kelly herself. From the evolving hair styles to her cadence, Charlize captured Megyn’s character perfectly and humanised her.
My favourite moment in the movie was Megyn’s response to the now-infamous comment from Donald Trump (played impeccably by the archival reel of Donald Trump) that when Megyn questioned him at the Fox News national presidential debate, she “had blood coming out of her eyes. Or blood coming out of her wherever.”
Not only did Charlize portray the professionalism of a seasoned journalist by refusing to apologise for good journalism (both in integrity and ratings) but she also showed her human side, fretting about whether she had become ‘the story.’
The second journalist featured in the movie was Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman), who was the first woman to publicly cry foul, not just in court but in the media against CEO Roger Ailes (John Lithgow).
I worried here that Nicole’s own stardom would outshine the relatively less-known Gretchen, but with very little dialogue, Nicole was able to convey Gretchen’s non-verbal dialogue perfectly. And even though there were moments when the façade faded between Gretchen and Nicole, there really is no one like Nicole to school audiences on the sound of silence.
The third leading character Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie) is supposed to be a composite of the less-well-known women who came forward with charges. While the other two reported harassment in years past, she was the only one that was experiencing it during the ordeal, making her a reflection of the Fox News culture that unfortunately has outlasted Roger Ailes.
A stray observation: The fourth wall was broken most by Megyn, who was on-air the most during this time, broken once by Gretchen, whose cancelled show was the catalyst of the cataclysm and never broken by Kayla, who was never on air.
Despite all the positives, my biggest thorn with the movie was the obvious left-wing bias against the modern conservative movement in the US. Not to say there aren’t issues with it, but the obvious jabs against conservatives got a bit excessive. And this, by the way, is coming from a non-partisan. So put those pitchforks down, please.
