Men most of all can learn about the unglamorous world of sexual harassment.
Bombshell
Grade: B+
Director: Jay Roach (Trumbo, Game Change)
Screenplay: Charles Randolph (The Big Short)
Cast: Charlize Theron (Long Shot), Nicole Kidman (Boy Erased)
Rating: R
Runtime: 1h 48m
By: John DeSando
“It’s a visual medium.” Roger Ailes (John Lithgow)
If you’re wondering what it’s like to be a leggy blonde with broadcasting ambition, look first at director Jay Roach’s Bombshell. In the docudrama revelation, right-wing Fox News titanic ruler Roger Ailes is exposed by Fox & Friends host Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) and star anchor Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) as a sexual harasser par-excellence.
Guiding the gifted talent in their burgeoning careers and sexually harassing them personally, Ailes seems invincible even though his cane and infirm body give a figurative clue to his vulnerability. The bombshells are waiting to explode, and smart as he is, he unwittingly lets Carlson secretly record his abuse. Her revelation becomes the rallying cry for other harassed women at Fox and around the world.
Despite the known end and almost formulaic arc of investigative journalism, this doc keeps the audience in anticipation, mostly to experience the crushing results the women must bear for coming forward against the most powerful man in TV. The steps in outing him are slow and painful; no one is sure she is doing the right thing in the face of hurting friends, colleagues, and family.
It’s “doing the right thing” that makes the trio that includes newbie Kayla (Margo Robbie) so heroic. It takes an enormous effort to become a star, and if you are a woman double that. The film shows that to be an attractive female supervised by horny men is a ticket to success and warfare, a situation most men know nothing about.
That’s why this drama is so worthwhile for men to see, for it gives the ocular proof of inequality and abuse where men might be traditionally clueless. As glamorous as the three leads are, the physical glory fades as they gain strength and become # Me Too avatars.
These three amigos are unlike most modern film heroes: What they do pits them against powerful and vicious men and their enablers, in this case the Fox Network. It is only too obvious that these real heroines will pay forever for their courage, and that’s ok with them.
Bombshell is a blast of freshness in the face of a well-known formula for heroes, but much more as the film shows without fanfare an ongoing war that can be won.
“We need more women in higher roles, because the tone for sexual harassment would no doubt be different.” Gretchen Carlson
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
