Bombshell

First Hit: I thoroughly enjoyed the acting and how this story shines a light on a behavior that was kept under wraps for far too long.

This is a story about the pain, degradation, and humiliation caused by the sexual abuse of women by the President of FOX News, Roger Ailes (John Lithgow).

Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) was the woman who sat between two men in the morning “Fox and Friends” television program. She put up with the snide and overly complimentary comments by her co-hosts and Ailes himself. As an integral part of the FOX News team, Carlson wanted to be seen as a peer and not a sexual object to be ridiculed. Her desire was to have her own show where she could call the shots. Over the years, she’d had many encounters with Ailes, many of them sexually charged and suggestive, but as a good reporter, she documented their meetings.

As she got older, Ailes wanted fresher and younger faces on the morning program, so he gave her a much-desired show of her own. However, it was placed it in the small audience afternoon time slot. However, that did not shy her away from doing some controversial stories, like older women without makeup show. This show, in particular, struck Ailes the wrong way, and we see him railing at Carlson and ended up not renewing her contract.

Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) was an up and comer in the news organization. And we slowly begin to learn, she also had sexually charged encounters with Ailes.  However, Ailes did support her challenging Donald Trump on the campaign trail and at the debate. She hated becoming the story. The story shows how becoming the story opened her up to changing how she needed to work.

Then there is the story about the young woman, a conservative FOX employee, who wanted to be on air. Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie) was a charger and aggressively sought out a way to speak to the man in charge, Ailes. The film shows their one on one meetings and Ailes propositioning her about how she could get to the top. The scene when Ailes asks her to stand, twirl, and hike up her skirt so he could see her legs were incredibly humiliating.

The movie cuts quickly from scene to scene and assaults you just as the news stories on television do from time to time. Scenes do not languish in this movie but are weaved together to create an account about how one woman Carlson decided to stand up to Ailes by suing him personally in hopes that others would join her.

Kidman was terrific as Carlson. Her internal strength to bring on a lawsuit was well presented. Theron was Megyn Kelly. The use of archival footage of Kelly and then segueing into scenes with Theron was seamless. It was a dominant performance. Robbie, as Pospisil, was sublime. I loved how she was able to show wide-eyed wonder, wanting to please, and desire to be noticed by senior management, then turn on a dime and show complete humiliation. Robbie’s ability to explain all this in one scene and still give the audience a cohesive character was flawless. Lithgow was perfect as the angry slimeball Ailes. His displays of anger and indignancy were well-founded in his being caught being a predator. Allison Janney as Susan Estrich, Ailes's lawyer, was excellent. Kate McKinnon as Jess Carr, a co-worker of Pospisil on “The O’Reilly Factor,” was perfect. She hid that she was a gay liberal working for Fox because it was the only job she could get. Charles Randolph wrote a pointed and robust script. Jay Roach did an excellent job of portraying the slow shifting tide at Fox News.

Overall: The event documented in this story helped to give wings to the “me too” movement.

The Campaign

First Hit:  It was very funny at times while at other times reflectively poignant of our political process.

Cam Brady (played by Will Ferrell) is a multi-elected congressman who does little in congress but loves being a member. He’s running unopposed until two wealthy businessmen Glenn and Wade Motch (played by John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd respectively) decide they want some influence in congress so that they can build a new factory in Brady's congressional district.

The kicker is that the workers will be imported from China at very low wages. It is what they call "insourcing". They select the younger odd-ball son of Raymond Huggins (played by Brian Cox) Marty (Zach Galifianakis) who they think they can easily manipulate.

Marty gives tours of his home town for a living but he’s always wanted to be seen as someone more than this, especially by his father. To assist Marty, Glenn and Wade hire a take no prisoners campaign manager Tim Wattley (played by Dylan McDermott). With Tim’s guidance, Marty becomes ruthless in his quest to win the election.

Cam is and becomes more of what most people don’t like about politicians, untruthful, unfaithful, scheming, and willing to do anything, including airing manipulative television commercials, to win. Marty is meeting him punch for punch, but learns the lesson sooner than Cam that he has to live with himself and in the final day of the campaign decides to promote telling the truth, the real truth.

The parallels to the real election process are astonishing and with our country in election mode, this film is timely. One very nice touch is having real and famous newsmen be part of the script. They are used to announce the latest news from the campaign.

Lastly, showing how both wives can and are affected by the power of publicity was very good.

Ferrell, although not my favorite actor, is pretty good in this role. Although too much Will Farrell and less of his character at times, he does carry this role, enough for the audience to see our election stupidity. Galifianakis is good but also stuck in a type casting of the same kind of person he’s played in other films. Fortunately it works here. Lithgow and Aykroyd are great as rich manipulators who point fingers at each other in front of a congressional hearing. McDermott was very amusing as the dark hired hand to make Marty a winner. Cox is great as Marty’s overly stuffed and arrogant father. Shawn Harwell and Chris Henchy must have had a lot of fun writing this script knowing this film would air during an election year. Jay Roach did a very good job of bringing poignant humor and truth by showing us the absurdity of our election process.

Overall:  This was an enjoyable film with some interesting likenesses to our current election.