Butler's Cinema Scene

Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman

“BOMBSHELL”   My rating: B

108 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Simultaneously an insider’s look at Fox News, a record of the rise of Trump, and an examination of sexual harassment in the workplace, “Bombshell” can boast of terrific timeliness and a killer cast of women (and one man).

What it doesn’t have is much emotional pull — aside, of course, from the indignation it’s sure  to generate in response to the culture of crassness fomented by the late Roger Ailes.

Jay Roach’s film centers on three women struggling to forge and maintain careers at Fox  News.

Two of them — network stars Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) and Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) — are of course real people.  The third, a newcomer to the network named Kayla Pospisi (Margot Robbie), is fictional.

Early in Charles Randolph’s screenplay Carlson secretly meets with a couple of lawyers. She’s on thin ice at the network, both for her show’s ratings and her feminist inclinations (doing one broadcast sans makeup as a sort of statement of solidarity with women viewers). Her chafing at being Barbie-tized will likely lead to her demotion or dismissal; when that day comes she wants to have plenty of documentation about groping and sexual intimidation in the hallowed halls of Fox.

Meanwhile Kelly (Theron looks so eerily like the real Kelly that audiences will end up doing double takes) makes the mistake of daring to ask tough questions of then-candidate Trump and so becomes the public object of the Donald’s ridicule (“She had blood coming out of her whatever”). Suddenly she’s the story; it’s not a comfortable place to be.

Finally there’s Robbie’s Kayla, daughter of conservatives from Out West, evidently religious, and fiercely ambitious.  She learns the Fox ropes from her cubicle mate (Kate McKinnon), a closeted lesbian, but has to make a decision when given the choice of trading a blowjob for a promotion.

Margot Robbie

At the ugly little core of all this is Roger Ailes (John Lithgow), the bloated head of Fox News who turned the network into a wildly profitable purveyor of right-wing politics.  He’s a brilliant strategist, an avuncular and (to some) beloved mentor….and a dirty old man.

It’s no coincidence, one of his female headliners observes, that the desk at which she sits is made of glass so that her legs are on full display.  Ailes always has an opinion  on office attire (shorter dresses, no pantsuits) and employs a unique audition process which involves pretty hopefuls hiking their skirts and posing for him.

Television is a visual medium, he explains.

In a perfect storm of circumstance and opportunity, these women bring down their groping boss (Ailes died just a couple of years later). It’s some sort of a  victory, yeah, but it doesn’t much feel like one. The Ailes legacy, in all of its manifestations, will live on.

John Lithgow

The production has come up with a bunch of lookalikes to portray Fox regulars like Neil Cavuto, Sean Hannity, Geraldo Rivera and Judge Jeanine Pirro. And Roach has assembled a ridiculously good cast…everywhere you look there’s a famous face: Allison Janney, Malcolm McDowell, Connie Britton, Rob Delaney, Mark Duplass, Stephen Root, Robin Weigert and Richard Kind (guaranteed to elicit laughs in a nearly wordless appearance as Rudy Giuliani).

“Bombshell” appears to be more or less factually accurate. But it’s not much fun.

Roach has a long history in comedy (the “Austin Powers” franchise,  “Meet the Parents” and its sequels, “Dinner for Schmucks”), but if anything he plays “Bombshell” too straight.  This material is begging for a satirical take, perhaps something along the lines of what Adam McKay pulled off last year with “Vice.”

Perhaps Roach felt the need to be “fair” in his depiction of life at Fox (no small irony there); that he’s also dealing with many still-living characters may also have been a factor.

And then there’s the fact that neither Kelly nor Carlson — while very well played by Theron and Kidman — are particularly  engaging characters.  They may be on the right side legally and ethically, but the vibe they give off is one of tough-shelled and self-serving professionalism.  Not much here to warm up to.

Faring better is Robbie, whose good-girl-in-the-big-city performance becomes the heart of the film.  (What does it say that without her made-up character the film would have no heart at all?)

“Bombshell” feels more plodding that spritely. It’s got no edge, no discernible point of view. Yeah, it tells an important story.  Just wish it told it in a more gripping fashion.

| Robert W. Butler

| Robert W. Butler