A group of women decide to take on Fox News head Roger Ailes and the toxic atmosphere he presided over at the network.
Pam says:
This timely and captivating story takes us back in time and behind the closed doors of Fox News under the toxic male leadership of Roger Ailes and the women who dared to make things change. Charlize Theron becomes Megyn Kelly as she invites us into the dark and disturbing atmosphere that perpetuated the expectation of women to be “loyal” to Ailes and all the men in leadership positions. Leading the charge, before the entire #MeToo movement, Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) is at the end of her career, well before her time, and hits Ailes with a law suit which becomes the catalyst for what’s to come. But it is Kayla’s (Margot Robbie) experiences that hammer it home to the viewer. She’s one of the few fictitious characters, an amalgam of many, and her performance allows us to walk in her shoes for a moment, experiencing the humiliation amidst her hopeful ascension in the news media. It’s a fast-paced, entertaining and enlightening story, albeit not as fair and balanced as you might hope, knowing Kelly’s foibles in media, but it does shed light on a subject in a new way. 3 1/2 stars
Chuck says:
Perhaps it’s just too soon. Perhaps the story is too fresh in our minds to have any true impact. Perhaps, regrettably, this tale is too common to really hit home. I can’t quite put my finger on it as Jay Roach’s docudrama about the Fox News sexual harassment scandal, Bombshell, is an engaging, well-acted film. Charles Randolph’s script pulls no punches in laying out how insidious the culture at the company was (is) and the movie is never dull, moving at a brisk pace from one incident of sexual harassment to the next. And yet, there’s something missing as the movie fails to generate the sort of moral outrage necessary, such as Todd Haynes criminally underseen Dark Waters does. Compelling and infuriating, the film is an intriguing document regarding one of the seminal events in the #MeToo movement. The performances are, across the board, exceptional yet curiously the film falls short in having the devastating effect it strives for. 2 1/2 Stars.
