Bombshell review: Nicole Kidman's all-star Fox News harassment drama flirts with danger

Dir: Jay Roach. Cast: Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, John Lithgow, Kate McKinnon, Jennifer Morrison, Alice Eve, Tricia Helfer, Allison Janney, Connie Britton, Alanna Ubach, Malcolm McDowell, Richard Kind. 15 cert, 109 mins

Bombshell is a bright, watchable film on a subject that ought to make us squirm. Sexism in the Fox newsroom was no one’s idea of a well-kept secret, but it didn’t become a burning issue until battle lines were drawn during the 2016 presidential election.

Not only did high-profile anchor Megyn Kelly take on Trump about his infamous rhetoric towards women, but she and several other employees came out of the woodwork to expose Roger Ailes, the Fox News CEO, for the sexual harassment in his office sanctum that had made their lives a nightmare.

Like the downfalls of Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, the toppling of Ailes was one of the key scalps that helped launch the #MeToo movement, and gained particular charge from happening at Fox, where a culture of male supremacy, fear and conservatism had always cocooned him. 

Jay Roach’s film retells the saga from three points of view – that of Kelly (an uncanny Charlize Theron), but also Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman), the first Fox employee to bring a lawsuit against Ailes, and finally a fictional associate producer named Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie), who’s a composite stand-in for several younger victims.

It says a lot about the conspiracy of silence surrounding Ailes that these three characters barely interact, and a scene of hot discomfort in a lift is the only moment when they’re all on screen. Each has a separate relationship with Ailes (a creepily avuncular John Lithgow, in a blubbery fat-suit) which crosses professional boundaries in one clear way or another. But no one dares say anything, for fear of doing irretrievable harm to their careers. 

Ailes’s long-serving PA (Holland Taylor, turning an elegant blind eye) has closed the boss’s door many times to give him privacy with vulnerable interns. Interviewing Kayla for the first time, in the film’s grossest illustration of his m.o., he makes her twirl and hitch up her skirt, and purringly insists on loyalty as the main gift he’s seeking. Robbie excels at that sinking feeling millions of women must know – breathless and keen to oblige at first, she's coaxed step-by-step into feeling cornered, mortified, and barely knowing where to look.

From way back in their careers, Kelly and Carlson have endured all this stuff and worse. But a terror of speaking out is practically enshrined in the company’s ethos, with its relentless emphasis on dishing up infotainment using presenters who look like glamour models. On or off the air, submitting to Ailes’s objectification is a Faustian pact the vast majority of Fox women – the supporting cast is all battle-hardened bit parts – have willingly entered into.

Exactly how they made Theron look this much like Megyn Kelly – with whatever combination of make-up sorcery, tiny prosthetics or digital enhancements – may be a mystery kept secret until awards voting is done and dusted. While the film shies away almost entirely from Kelly's assaultive politics, there’s plenty else for Theron to chew on: she’s excellent at giving us the public and private faces of a powerful accuser waiting for her moment to strike. Everything in Theron that seems coiled, walled-off, and a little wary makes her a perfect fit for this role. 

The puzzle with Kidman – beyond the rather wonkier effect of her wig and fake chin – is trying to deduce why she doesn’t seem to belong in the same film. As Carlson, she’s by no means bad. But she’s curiously sidelined, which is an odd look for a script which keeps making points about her character being put out to pasture. 

Kelly is the main character here, and her nerves about coming forward hinge on not wanting the Ailes allegations to haunt or define her whole career. Bombshell suffers from a weird failure to recognise that Carlson took the bigger risks – throwing herself under a bus, practically, to open up a climate where Kelly and others could feel comfortable chiming in.

Every Oscar season now seems to throw up at least one film like Steve Jobs, Vice, or this, where garlanded stars suit up to play real-life figures and get due (or more than due) credit for the transformation. (For a glimpse of Malcolm McDowell’s Spitting-Image-style impression of Rupert Murdoch, you’ll be waiting until the penultimate reel.) 

While Bombshell fulfils this actor-friendly brief, especially thanks to the commitment of Theron and Robbie, handing it to a director as comedy-attuned as Roach (Austin Powers, Meet the Parents) wasn’t the most tactful move. Kate McKinnon’s smirky role as a closet Democrat on the Fox payroll elbows the tone especially into broad satire, just when we’d rather be getting serious. This film’s too keen to be splashy, winking entertainment. And gratuitous winking – when the Aileses of this world are grimly on the prowl – is a rather dangerous game.

Bombshell is released in the UK on January 17, 2020