Bombshell (2019)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Bombshell (2019) – J. Roach

Were there always this many films that offer a retelling of recent events using actors and Hollywood techniques?  I feel as though we are being asked to revisit and rethink what we know about history over and over again – is it Oliver Stone’s fault? Can we trust the retelling?  This time, it is the events at Fox News leading up to the sexual harassment lawsuit that was Roger Ailes’ downfall (and Bill O’Reilly’s too).  If I were living in America, I might be able to discern whether the film is telling the “truth” or not.  But at this point, I don’t know who Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) is and I’ve barely heard the name Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) and that is only because she moderated one of the 2016 Republican debates and got into a spat with Trump (which I read about in the media at the time).  The film covers that spat and Kelly’s complicated relationship with Fox and Ailes (played with fat-suit prosthetics by John Lithgow).  As the “me too” movement gains steam, Carlson sues Ailes and Kelly needs to decide where she stands.  Margot Robbie plays a new recruit who is also harassed by Ailes.  The film gets pretty depressing as the various bad behaviours are outlined and director Jay Roach does let us feel the shame and degradation and powerlessness of the women involved.  For that, its heart is in the right place and it is good to explore the terrible dynamics of this situation that women are too often placed in.  Perhaps it is empowering to see them confront their tormentors.  But this series of films featuring impersonations and restaging of current events is a weird genre and I worry sometimes that these deep fakes might begin to replace our actual history (at least in people’s memories).