Bombshell’s strong performances let down by shallow package

With a splashy cast including Margot Robbie, Nicole Kidman and Charlize Theron, this movie should’ve been better.

A movie with a cast as stacked as Bombshell was always going to get your attention. That title helps too.

Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie headline the political drama about the downfall of larger-than-life media boss Roger Ailes, the head of Fox News who faced accusations of sexual harassment and misconduct before he was sacked with a $US40 million golden parachute.

Bombshell tries to capture the shocking notes of the scandal by telling the story through two prominent women, Fox News anchors Megyn Kelly (Theron) and Gretchen Carlson (Kidman) and a fictionalised young producer Kayla (Robbie), who’s supposed to stand in as an amalgam of more junior staff caught in Ailes’ (John Lithgow) insidious orbit.

In case you haven’t caught on to the double meaning behind the title Bombshell yet, it refers to both how you describe a scandal of this magnitude and also all the “blonde bombshells” Fox News was notorious for placing in front of the camera, a strict Ailes edict.

Charlize Theron in prosthetics as Megyn Kelly.

Director Jay Roach has experience with this kind of material before having helmed two excellent HBO movies, Recount and Game Change, about the disputed Florida vote during the Bush-Gore election and the unlikely rise and then fall of Sarah Palin during the Obama-McCain election respectively.

Roach’s grasp of this particular brand of political drama – part bite, part incisiveness and part pacy entertainment – was on display in those two earlier movies, but the Me Too era Bombshell lacks the same oomph and polish.

The story picks up in 2015, right before the Republican Primary debate during which Kelly challenged then-candidate Donald Trump on his views on women. What followed was Mr Trump’s infamous suggestion that Kelly must have been menstruating.

Not long after, Carlson was sacked from Fox and launched a sexual harassment lawsuit against Ailes personally, alleging she was fired over rejecting his sexual advances.

Robbie’s composite character Kayla is an eager young producer who is preyed on by Ailes, dangling opportunities and promotions in front of her.

Margot Robbie is effective as composite character Kayla.

Nicole Kidman is fierce as Gretchen Carlson.

The dramatic tension in the film is largely driven by the question of if and when will Kelly and other women back up Carlson’s public claims.

The performances from the three female leads are all really strong, especially Theron, but Lithgow’s lascivious portrayal of Ailes is a little one note – “I’m discreet but unforgiving.”

Kate McKinnon plays a minor character who is a producer at Fox News but also a lesbian and Democrat in a nest of people with opposing values – she’s a fascinating a character but is left unexplored.

That hits at the main thing that plagues Bombshell – it’s shallow.

Perhaps it’s that Ailes is now dead and therefore can’t sue for defamation, but largely targeting Ailes and a culture intrinsically linked to him, and only quickly referencing the wider rot within corporate life or society, seems more like a legal ducking move than a narrative focus.

Which leaves Bombshell something of an incomplete examination of Me Too – not that any two-hour movie can be that comprehensive, but a sin of omission is still a sin.

Roger Ailes died in 2017.

Apple TV+’s Morning Wars, while a creatively flawed series, explores the complexities and dynamics of Me Too with more care in that it wasn’t afraid to get in the muck and play around. In Bombshell, it’s a very black-and-white rendering in which Ailes is the bogeyman and anything else that happened stems from him.

The script by Charles Randolph, Oscar-winning co-writer of The Big Short, tries to weave some of the same tics in Bombshell, like the fourth-wall breaking, but it’s not balanced well. Ditto the use of archival footage of Ailes feels off-putting and pulls you out.

Bombshell is a fine enough movie, one that’s entertaining and well-paced when you’re watching it but forgettable as soon as you leave the theatre.

Rating: 3/5

Bombshell is in cinemas on January 16

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