BOMBSHELL is one of this year’s entries. (There are actually a few others.) It’s a very watchable movie with enough star power to light the marquee. Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, and John Lithgow are all wonderful. And the movie’s heart is in the right place (these movies always are). Sexual harassment in the workplace has gone unchecked for decades and victims have suffered with no recourse. Happily, the tide is beginning to turn. But this movie fails to score a bullseye.
First off, it would have been better if Aaron Sorkin wrote it. Charles Randolph’s screenplay was fine but never really popped. There were never any scenes where verbal fireworks occurred. Very smart people in power is Sorkin’s wheelhouse and he’s pretty much set the bar for what crackling dialogue in that arena should be. This screenplay was serviceable but never fun. And never surprising. I don’t think I learned anything I didn’t already know.
The thing that makes this genre so satisfying is when the bad guys really lose. Woodward & Bernstein brought down a corrupt US President. But in BOMBSHELL, Trump is portrayed as a scumbag, FOX NEWS is unconscionable, and Rupert Murdoch is evil personified. And at the end of the movie they’re all still there. They’re all still in place. So Roger Ailes is brought down. That’s nice, but FOX NEWS continues just as loathsome as before. The women we’re supposed to be rooting for – Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly – they were happy to spread the insidious Fox propaganda for their own fame and fortune. So it’s hard to stand up and loudly cheer for them.
Seems to me a more effective movie would be to show the damage that sexual harassment in the workplace causes. What are the residual effects? How do the victims cope? What is the collateral damage? All of that is glossed over.
Gretchen Carlson was courageous for blowing the whistle on Roger Ailes. After she would not comply with his sexual overtures she was exiled to a crappy time slot. But what if Ailes hadn't demoted her? What if she knew this Ailes behavior was rampant but she kept her coveted time slot? Would she still have come forward? So was this lawsuit to stop sexual harassment or payback for ultimately being fired?
SPOILER ALERT (but you know the story): Megyn Kelly only goes public when she determines it’s safe for her to do so. (So in a sense she WAS Gretchen Carlson if Carlson wasn’t demoted. She said nothing for years. At least one character does call her on that.)
And these were the HEROINES! Not exactly Erin Brockovich.
Jay Roach’s direction is slick and well-paced. But BOMBSHELL was like watching IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE without the final reel so the movie ends with everyone miserable in Pottersville.
from By Ken Levine
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