Film Number: 5
Stars: 4
Love it or loathe it. Fox News is a polarising television network. Personally, I avoid it like the plague, as I do the Australian equivalent, Sky News, but this personal bias has not stopped me from keeping in touch with what went in 2016 when the head of the Fox News Network, Roger Ailes, was dumped from his job, along with news anchor Bill O'Reilly for sexual misconduct. In these post "Me Too" times, this movie was always going to be made.
For those who don't know about Fox News, Jess Carr (Kate McKinnon) describes working there as follows, " You have to adopt the mentality of an Irish street cop: the world is a bad place, people are lazy morons, minorities are criminals, sex is sick but interesting. Ask yourself, what would scare my grandmother or piss off my grandfather? And that's a Fox story."
If you're in Australia, think Sky News. Got it. Yeah.
Bombshell looks at three different stories which merge in the middle.
Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) is the news anchor who's starting to buck the system. While trying to make the network a little more women friendly, she runs foul of Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) who wants none of her demands. She's basically told to sit down, shut up and be a good girl. Something Carlson does not put up with and she takes her well founded complaints to the lawyers.
It appears that most complaints of this nature at Fox News Network were dealt with internally, the victims paid off after signing an iron clad non-disclosure agreement.
Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) around the same time, is drawn in to a Twitter brawl with Donald Trump. Nasty stuff, which played over the airwaves for weeks. She takes the high road through the event, refusing to back down or stoop to Trump's level. She also refuses to refute the allegations against Ailes.
Then there is the story of Kayla (Margot Robbie), one character based on the testimony of Ailes' other victims. The young ingenue rises up the ranks from Gretchen Carlson's team to that of Bill O'Reilly. Young, beautiful and ambitious, she is taken in to see Ailes for a private meeting. Kayla is a fictitious character, an amalgam of many other women who had reported sexual harassment at the hands of Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes.
There are a number of smaller characters and cameos which are also brilliant. Malcolm McDowell as Rupert Murdoch, being one of these. Kate McKinnon's Jess brings an interesting slant to the newsroom, though how a Democrat voting lesbian would survive at the Fox Network is beyond me.
Look at any of the award shows and you'll see the names Charlize Theron, Margot Robbie and Nicole Kidman sitting there in the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories for their work on this movie. All deserve these accolades.
This film is well made, brilliantly scripted and the make up department deserves every award they get. John Lithgow and Charlize Theron are nearly unrecognisable.
As a biopic, this movie stands out. It's not comfortable viewing in some places. There is one scene in particular which is gutting. Some of the best acting of last year.
As a movie about these 'Me Too' times, some dis-ease may be felt. In the dog-eat-dog world of news broadcasting, women have never had a great time of things. Some could argue that both Carlson and Kelly were paid enough to shut up. I don't see this that way.
What Bombshell brings to the table is a view of the institutionalised sexual harassment in a place where it is, for want of a better word, expected to happen, and how this was resolved.
For me, the most telling part of the film was in its closing minutes. The Fox News Network paid out around 50 million dollars to all of the complainants for the sexual harassment cases.
Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes received payouts amounting to over 65 million dollars.
And there's the rub.
It's not going to be everybody's cup of vitriol, but I enjoyed Bombshell.
Today's song:
Stars: 4
Love it or loathe it. Fox News is a polarising television network. Personally, I avoid it like the plague, as I do the Australian equivalent, Sky News, but this personal bias has not stopped me from keeping in touch with what went in 2016 when the head of the Fox News Network, Roger Ailes, was dumped from his job, along with news anchor Bill O'Reilly for sexual misconduct. In these post "Me Too" times, this movie was always going to be made.
For those who don't know about Fox News, Jess Carr (Kate McKinnon) describes working there as follows, " You have to adopt the mentality of an Irish street cop: the world is a bad place, people are lazy morons, minorities are criminals, sex is sick but interesting. Ask yourself, what would scare my grandmother or piss off my grandfather? And that's a Fox story."
If you're in Australia, think Sky News. Got it. Yeah.
Bombshell looks at three different stories which merge in the middle.
Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) is the news anchor who's starting to buck the system. While trying to make the network a little more women friendly, she runs foul of Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) who wants none of her demands. She's basically told to sit down, shut up and be a good girl. Something Carlson does not put up with and she takes her well founded complaints to the lawyers.
It appears that most complaints of this nature at Fox News Network were dealt with internally, the victims paid off after signing an iron clad non-disclosure agreement.
Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) around the same time, is drawn in to a Twitter brawl with Donald Trump. Nasty stuff, which played over the airwaves for weeks. She takes the high road through the event, refusing to back down or stoop to Trump's level. She also refuses to refute the allegations against Ailes.
Then there is the story of Kayla (Margot Robbie), one character based on the testimony of Ailes' other victims. The young ingenue rises up the ranks from Gretchen Carlson's team to that of Bill O'Reilly. Young, beautiful and ambitious, she is taken in to see Ailes for a private meeting. Kayla is a fictitious character, an amalgam of many other women who had reported sexual harassment at the hands of Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes.
There are a number of smaller characters and cameos which are also brilliant. Malcolm McDowell as Rupert Murdoch, being one of these. Kate McKinnon's Jess brings an interesting slant to the newsroom, though how a Democrat voting lesbian would survive at the Fox Network is beyond me.
Look at any of the award shows and you'll see the names Charlize Theron, Margot Robbie and Nicole Kidman sitting there in the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories for their work on this movie. All deserve these accolades.
This film is well made, brilliantly scripted and the make up department deserves every award they get. John Lithgow and Charlize Theron are nearly unrecognisable.
As a biopic, this movie stands out. It's not comfortable viewing in some places. There is one scene in particular which is gutting. Some of the best acting of last year.
As a movie about these 'Me Too' times, some dis-ease may be felt. In the dog-eat-dog world of news broadcasting, women have never had a great time of things. Some could argue that both Carlson and Kelly were paid enough to shut up. I don't see this that way.
What Bombshell brings to the table is a view of the institutionalised sexual harassment in a place where it is, for want of a better word, expected to happen, and how this was resolved.
For me, the most telling part of the film was in its closing minutes. The Fox News Network paid out around 50 million dollars to all of the complainants for the sexual harassment cases.
Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes received payouts amounting to over 65 million dollars.
And there's the rub.
It's not going to be everybody's cup of vitriol, but I enjoyed Bombshell.
Today's song:
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