Bombshell (2020) - Movie Review

The latest predominantly-comedic director trying his hand at more politically-minded cinema, Meet The Parents and Austin Powers director Jay Roach has teamed up with The Big Short co-writer Charles Randolph to dramatize the sexual abuse allegations levelled against former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, in particular those from newscasters Megyn Kelly and Gretchen Carlson.

I’ll admit, after sitting through efforts like Money Monster and Vice, I’m kind of worried that this is gonna be another instance where I end up agreeing with the production on principle, but leave it thinking that the film assumes that that agreement is all it needs to engage, since it doesn’t do so in any other form. However, I am pleased to report that this is not the case. If anything, it shows Roach managing to outdo Chris McKay at his own game.

The casting for this is seriously top-notch, going from the central three out into the supporting cast. Charlize Theron is no stranger to acting through copious make-up prosthetics, and her experience with it gives her depiction of Megyn Kelly the right amount of professionalism and emotional simmer to sell her position in the story. Nicole Kidman may be sidelined for a fair amount of the film, but as a main touchstone for the portrayal of how women in the studio were treated, she pulls it off nicely. And as for Margot Robbie as the composite Kayla Pospisil, she is basically the embodiment of the younger, more impressionable generation getting pulled into the quite sleazy trappings of the office, a role she handles quite well.

 

As for the supporting cast, John Lithgow as Ailes himself is prime dirtbag material, even if the film doesn’t always know how to treat such things, and Malcolm McDowell as Rupert Murdoch… don’t really think I need to add anything to that; if he’s going to return to mainstream cinema, this is one hell of a way to do so. Connie Britton as Mrs. Ailes works well as the quiet enabler, Kevin Dorff as Bill O’Reilly has make-up work that might trump even that of Theron’s for scary accuracy, and Kate McKinnon as Kayla’s co-worker is easily her best screen role to date.

Her role as a queer liberal-with-a-lowercase-l working in a definitively conservative space because they’re the only ones who would hire her, and basically no-one else will afterwards, is something I relate to so Dude-damn much, I might put my own job at risk if I got into it any further. Needless to say, I don’t think I have ever liked McKinnon more than I do here.

The film’s portrayal of the sexual abuse at hand, and the office culture that propagated it, there is a definite feeling that some punches are being pulled in the process. Don’t get me wrong, it hits vomit-inducing when it needs to, and when it shows Kayla and Roger in the same room together, I find myself quite thankful for the composite so I didn’t have to watch that vile exchange for a second time.

But as an examination of political optics, where how a situation looks is more important than anything else, this honestly does a pretty damn good job. Doubly so as part of its depiction of The House That Murdoch Built, where pretences of loyalty and playing ball fade away against what ultimately gets the higher ratings. It may dull down the specific leanings of the people involved, largely leaning on media cynicism, but that doesn’t make its statements any less accurate.

There’s also something to be said about how this fits into the current political climate, and I’m not just talking about Trump. One of the main reasons why this event has stuck in popular consciousness, to the point where original producers Annapurna Pictures were chomping at the bit to make this shortly after Roger Ailes kicked the bucket (I’d call them out for opportunism, but something tells me Ailes himself might have approved), is that it’s basically a precursor to the larger MeToo movement. And chances are that one’s own perspective regarding that larger conversation will end up painting one’s impressions of this film as a whole.

Personally, between the professional strong-arming, the highly uncomfortable way that corporate favouritism plays into how the event is perceived within the Fox News offices, and having seen enough media on the subject to know the hell that is going along with it, I see this as being pretty on-point.

But honestly, my main source of engagement here didn’t come from any of the immediate sources. Rather, it came from how my own cultural background plays into the lens I viewed this through. The whole time watching, as I saw the Murdochs almost-literally hang over the heads of everyone on-screen, I couldn’t help but think that… well, the Americans got off lightly. Rupert Murdoch may have a pretty tight hold on American media through Fox, but here in Australia, that hold is even tighter and even more expansive.

So I found it somewhat vindicating to see Rupert himself not only depicted by one of the greatest villain actors of all time, but in a production where two of the three leads are Australian exports, much like Rupert, with Aussie actors Josh and Ben Lawson playing his sons, and where he ends up being shown as a greater villain than even Ailes. I’m used to left-leaning films like this attempting to pander to the audience, but quite frankly, this is such a specific example that either Jay Roach and company are outright ingenious or I’ve somehow found a new low for my occasionally pareidolic perspective on film. I’m grateful regardless.

It may not be as biting as it arguably should have been in regards to the political hotbed and closest-the-West-has-to-state-owned-journalism that is Fox News (with partisan favouritism that ingrained in the current administration, I’m just calling it how I see it), but that disregards everything else this gets right. The performances are solid (save for Richard Kind as Rudy Gulliani, who is the diametric opposite kind of quirky than the role called for), the pacing is quite smooth, and as a piece of political expose, it nails more areas it aims for than not.