Review: Bombshell (2019)

Bombshell. I’ve seen this movie twice over the past week, and what really has me thinking is the fact that I didn’t even remember the Roger Ailes scandal had happened until I saw this trailer a couple of months ago. I am incredibly shocked about that – I have vivid memories of the day Ronan Farrow’s New Yorker exposé of Harvey Weinstein was released, yet the Fox news scandal completely slipped my mind.

That is one among many reasons why I am so glad that this film has been made. It was together the behind the scenes story of Fox’s coverage of the 2016 election alongside the Roger Ailes case, creating a film that is incredibly complex (maybe even more complex than the film itself realizes). Bombshell’s examination of power and the abuse of it goes far beyond Ailes and O’Reilly, straight into the Oval Office. 

There was, without a doubt, no weak link in terms of performance in this film. Charlize Theron’s portray of Megyn Kelly is nothing short of Oscar-worthy. She literally was Megyn Kelly. Kidman and Robbie were similarly incredible – this may have been the one to win me back over, Nicole. And the one I was the most excited about, Kate McKinnon. Her role was funny and heartbreaking and made me think that SNL doesn’t deserve the immeasurable talents of Kate McKinnon.

Scenes that stuck with me: there were two sequences in this film that have haunted me this week. One, when Megyn is in her car and looks back towards her sleeping daughter, and the other when Gretchen is finishing her conversation with her lawyers and they cut to a shot of her daughter. For me, this really tied together what Bombshell was all about – what kind of workplace are we going to leave for other women, especially those that come after us, if we continue to let this kind of behavior slide.