'Bombshell' lands with a thud
Megyn Kelly will have you know that she is not a feminist.
It's one of the first things the character, played with almost unsettling accuracy by Charlize Theron, says about herself in Bombshell. She rolls her eyes when her colleagues accuse her of harboring feminist leanings. She is so emphatically not a feminist, in fact, that her team knows to parrot the line for her when she's unable to say it herself.
And knowing what we know about the real Megyn Kelly, it's easy enough to take her at her word. Megyn Kelly. Not a feminist. Got it.
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Bombshell's is an empty feminism that's more about gesturing at progress than grappling with the work it takes to move forward.
Nevertheless, Bombshell seems determined to make her into one, at at least into a symbol onto which self-declared feminists can feel comfortable projecting their admiration. Her story of sexual harassment by former Fox News chief Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) is a horrifying one, in both the real-life and fictionalized versions. But in its framing here — along with the accounts of Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) and a fictionalized composite named Kayla (Margot Robbie) — as a triumphant David-and-Goliath fable, it's difficult not to notice what Bombshell leaves out.
Bombshell goes down easy, taking the Big Short approach to explaining the downfall of Roger Ailes. (In fact, it is scripted by Big Short writer Charles Randolph. Jay Roach, enthusiastic chronicler of recent history in films like Game Change and Recount, directed.) Megyn explains the Fox News building directly to us with a zippy walk-and-talk. Gretchen confides her thoughts to the camera even as she outwardly composes herself for the benefit of everyone else in the room. And the whole thing ends with a voiceover summarizing the film's lessons, in case we weren't paying close enough attention to all of it. It goes out of its way to make sure you're never bored or confused, and you probably won't be.
But this slick style elides some of the deeper, more complicated conversations to be had. Our heroines' journeys are contained in neat little arcs of empowerment and self-actualization, with no room for the messiness and ugliness of authentic lived experiences. It makes for a more flattering portrayal, perhaps, but also a flatter and less human one. Meanwhile, the supporting characters (almost all of them recognizable character actors who come across like they're auditioning for next week's SNL cold open) are largely sorted into good guys and bad guys — to the extent that the Murdochs come out looking clean here, simply because they're the ones who ultimately fired Ailes.
Most frustratingly, there is little exploration of what it means for this scandal to be unfolding at a company that's built its entire identity on serving as a standard-bearer of conservative, frequently misogynistic American politics. To see Bombshell tell it, Fox News may as well be any other workplace in America. To be sure, in some ways it is — the details of Ailes' reign of terror ring depressingly familiar after years of sexual harassment exposés about one company after another — but the film's failure to dig beyond that universality is a major missed opportunity.
Bombshell does include details that hint at Fox News' unique position in our culture, like a recreation of Kelly's infamous Santa rant, or a Bill O'Reilly producer's (Kate McKinnon) explanation that a Fox News story is one that "would scare my grandmother or piss off my grandfather," or a scene of Gretchen getting told off at the supermarket by a liberal citizen. But you take out of these moments whatever feelings or opinions you bring into them; Bombshell presents them so as to look fair and balanced, but stops short of offering a perspective on any of it.
The one thing the movie does take a firm, unequivocal stance on is that sexual harassment is very serious and very bad. While it's hard to argue with that message, it's also hard not to wonder, is that it? Who doesn't already know that in 2019, unless it's because they're absolutely determined not to? Bombshell seems unlikely to change anyone's mind about anything, to challenge anyone's opinions or show them new perspectives. It doesn't even seem that interested in trying.
Bombshell repackages the Fox News story as a feminist fable, Megyn's protestations notwithstanding, but it's an empty feminism that's more about gesturing at progress than grappling with the work it takes to move forward, about seeing some women as symbols rather than individuals and other women not at all. For a movie that wants to celebrate the courage it takes to uncover ugly truths and take down corrupt powers, Bombshell turns out to be awfully timid.
