Mark Reviews Movies: BOMBSHELL (2019)

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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 12, 2019

In the middle of one story about sexual harassment, there's a brief but potent flashback to yet another. The targeted character is unimportant to the specifics of the triptych narrative of Bombshell, which follows three women (two famous and one invented) at Fox News, as they determine what to do about the toxic culture of their workplace, overseen by a man whose ugly politics are only overshadowed by his serial abuse of women. That flashback, though, is vital, though, if only because it actually goes inside the woman's mind, navigating how to deal with what her male co-worker is saying, implying, and likely planning to do if she refuses him.

Charles Randolph screenplay is at its most effective when it's confronting this specific issue, particularly how women who suffer such harassment and abuse of power react to such unwanted and unwarranted sexual advances in the office. The movie does get inside the minds of more than just the woman in that flashback.

It follows TV personalities Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron, disappearing into the role so much that there are only about three moments when you can see the actress beneath the character) and Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman), as well as Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie), a fictionalized producer at the news network. All three of them have suffered harassment by network chairman and CEO Roger Ailes (John Lithgow), who sees himself as the victim of political elites and some indefinable establishment. What he can't understand is that, within the bubble of his network and conservative politics, he is the elite, the establishment, and the victimizer all rolled into one, disgusting package.

Megyn's story follows the fallout within the conservative realm after she questioned the sexist views of the man who will become President. Gretchen's story is about her eventual decision to sue Roger, after his disagreements with some of her on-air statements lead to her firing. Kayla's story follows the ambitious producer, as she moves up to a primetime gig (with a TV personality who's no stranger to harassment). She wants to be on TV, and Roger might consider it, as long as Kayla, in an especially discomforting scene (partly because it's shot from Roger's perspective), shows him what her short skirt is hiding.

Randolph and director Jay Roach's movie comes with a lot of baggage, most of it self-imposed. This isn't just a tale of sexual harassment and how women must precisely calculate how, when, and why they come forward with the truth—if they even decide to do so at all. The consequences of an error in approach or timing or even an unintended motivation could damage a woman reputation and professional future, especially at a place like this, where the supposed "greater good" of politics trumps the pain of a single cog in the machinery.

The movie, then, is also a dissection of Fox News as a political and organizational entity, in which everyone is facing the pressure of facing a Republican candidate for President whom they either want to or have to get behind to go along with the higher-ups and the audience. Randolph and Roach do make the connection between the behavior of Ailes and that candidate, although, like so many of the movie's attacks on the culture of Fox News, it's broadly made—a quick jab that only momentarily stings.

The filmmakers are trying to do two things at once—namely to portray the minefield of sexual harassment and to go after Fox News, not only as a company that was (and still might be) bad for women, but also as one in which that culture of abuse and silence is only scratching the surface of how terrible the company is. While those two goals might not be inherently contradictory, they certainly seem that way in this case.

After all, if it's going after Fox News, the movie can't portray its versions of these women as strong or scared or vulnerable victims in any pure, simple, or even sincere sense. They are also part of that political and organizational machinery. The movie may not blame these women for what Ailes and others have done to them, but it might as well be blaming them for being such people who would work at such a company in the first place. Those aren't the same thing, obviously, but since this movie only paints in broad strokes, there's certainly no clear distinction made.

As such, Randolph portrays all three women as hypocrites in some notable way. Megyn is so determined to be a star that she has hidden and continues to hide the harassment she faced about a decade prior. Gretchen makes a point of refusing to call herself a feminist, even as she starts saying some things that make her sound like one, and scolds a woman at a grocery store for being unkind to her over a political disagreement—a thing, of course, off of which Fox News has made a fortune. Kayla is a conservative Christian who's hiding the fact that she's a lesbian and can't or won't admit that truth about herself.

One is left wondering if this particular story, about an issue that should transcend the political divide (although it regularly doesn't), is the appropriate venue for such a widespread attack. Bombshell possesses moments of compassion, but in the end, the whole thing feels a bit disingenuous.

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