Bombshell (2019) - Toxic US culture laid bare in Roach's great drama

♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best True Story Movie of the Year

Three of the world's best actresses as blond bombshells on the poster for Jay Roach's Bombshell

Fox News is the top cable news channel in the US under CEO Roger Ailes, but as a female anchor gets fired, and a new associate producer meets the sinister office culture under Ailes of sexual favors in exchange for a career there, - that vicious culture is finally about to meet its end.

Bombshell is a fascinating true-story drama written by Charles Randolph (The Interpreter (2005)) and directed by great New-Mexican filmmaker Jay Roach (Zoo Radio (1990)).
The challenge here has clearly been considerable: Make a compelling, entertaining and feasibly structured movie about a decade-long culture of sexual harassment and the downfall of Ailes. Along the way the film succeeds in painting a candid portrait of the very particular workplace that is cable network Fox News, as well as, inevitably, president Trump and his transgressive 'loose-cannon' style as his 2016 election campaign is part of the story. Bombshell succeeds impressively; it accepts that Fox News is not a normal workplace and embraces the sensational aspect of the story; sexy people on TV that were bullied and intimidated. But the Trump mania as well as the settlements that conclude the scandal, (eventually Fox paid Ailes and disgraced anchor Bill O'Reilly more severance money than they did the scores of women that were victimized by them), raise the story to something that points to a toxic climate on a national cultural level. Toxic media-fueled bullying and the lack of a common decency base disintegrates the US. - That could be a radical take from the also acerbically funny Bombshell.
The cast is littered with talent: Charlize Theron (Tully (2018)) is transformed by hair, makeup and prosthetics into Megyn Kelly, who especially gets the ball rolling against Ailes. Nicole Kidman (BMX Bandits (1983)) is a force of thunder as Gretchen Carlson. Margot Robbie (Z for Zachariah (2015)) is terrific as the young associate producer, the fictional composite character that is our closest look into the actual misdeeds that Ailes committed against staff and young women at 'casting' meetings. We never see the deeds, - but we get the picture and degradation it means for the women. The paranoid office tension of a fear culture is palpable, and the women come together memorably in a few elevator scenes. John Lithgow (The Pelican Brief (1993)) is great as Ailes, who isn't a monster here but a man who is powerful and held unaccountable for many many years. The cast also has terrific capacities like Connie Britton (Women in Trouble (2009)), Kate McKinnon (Ted 2 (2015)), Malcolm McDowell (Zombex (2013)), Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair (2005)), Allison Janney (A Thousand Words (2012)), Richard Kind (Fancypants (2011)) and Robin Weigert (The Sessions (2012)).
Bombshell is snappy and thought-provoking, simultaneously entertaining and depressing like a glittery magazine. It calls Adam McKay's brilliant masterpiece The Big Short (2015) to mind, which Randolph co-wrote, without Bombshell reaching the heights felt in that film. It is a still a great piece of filmmaking.

Related posts:

Jay Roach: 2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Trumbo (2015) - Good actors and a thrilling true story make this biopic work 
Dinner for Schmucks/Dinner with Schmucks (2010) - Carell carries Roach's flawed but utterly hilarious comedy 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 32 mil. $
Box office: 59.6 mil. $ and counting
= Big flop (has grossed 1.86 times its cost to date)
[Bombshell opened 13 December (USA) and runs 108 minutes. Development of the film was announced shortly after Ailes' death in May 2017. Shooting took place in Los Angeles, California from October 2018- ?. The film opened #19 to a 319k $ first weekend in 4 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #6 and has grossed 31.7 mil. $ (53.2 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets are Australia with 4.8 mil. $ (13.4 %) and the UK with 2.9 mil. $ (4.9 %). The film's release has been upset by the corona-virus pandemic. The film was nominated for 3 Oscars: It won for Best Makeup and Hairstyling and lost Best Actress (Theron) to Renée Zellweger in Judy and Supporting Actress (Robbie) to Laura Dern in Marriage Story. It was also nominated for 2 Golden Globes, won 1/2 BAFTA nominations and several other honors. Roach hasn't announced his next project yet. Theron returns in The Old Guard (2020, VOD); Kidman in The Undoing (2020, TV-series) and theatrically in The Prom (2020); and Robbie in Megan Thee Stallion & Normani's Diamonds (2020) music video and theatrically in Birds of Prey (2020). Bombshell is fresh at 70 % with a 6.73/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Bombshell?