Stars: 4/5
“Bombshell,” the fictional retelling of the women who helped bring down Fox News’ chairman and CEO, Robert Ailes, bombed at the box office.
The movie features the sexual harassment stories of Gretchen Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and a fictional Kayla Pospisil. It set itself up for success with Charlize Theron’s uncanny portrayal of Megyn Kelly, making it difficult to tell if it was Theron or Kelly herself on-screen, while Margot Robbie’s storyline helped shed light on the women harassed by Ailes.
Opening on Kelly’s questioning of Trump during a debate, the movie showed just what it took to work at Fox News. Women like Carlson and Kelly were faced with the task of being on the front lines of the news company, meaning that they received lots of backlash for certain decisions.
Seeing her release from the company coming, Carlson decided to act against Ailes, suing him for sexual harassment as soon as she was let go. Switching between achieved news footage, movie reels, and photos of real victims while a voiceover of their testaments played in the background, “Bombshell” powerfully showed what many women had to go through.
While the movie fell short in some areas, they compensated with their great job at showing the harassment many of the women at Fox faced. They used Robbie’s character, a mashup of several sexual harassment victims from Fox News, to portray just how much power the top men of the company had. This movie, while filled with heavy subject matter managed to make these events somehow, serious and spirited at the same time.
With the story having taken place at the start of the “Me Too” movement, it shed light on how many women that were victimized by Ailes came forward. By the end, when Theron’s character was coming forward with her story, she comments that she is “W,” meaning that 22 women had also come forward to speak out about this.
Kate McKinnon, playing a closeted democrat and lesbian producer on Bill O’Reilly’s show, was there for comic relief, as well as Kayla’s support at Fox. Her character helped give this movie the right about of lightheartedness to engage audiences and keep them wanting more.
While “Bombshell” deals with the heavy subject matter and can be triggering to some, it is overall a well-done movie that many should see. Even though it bombed at the box office, it blowed me away and sheds a light on discussions that need to happen.