Critique of Bombshell- by Beyond The Trailer

Full text transcript of video critique of Bombshell

When I got out of the press screening for this movie and I was totally blown away, I did not expect it to be anywhere as good as it is. And some of you might find yourself in the same situation, like I say, bombshell. I don’t know what to do. I want to be preached to for a few hours. And also, if you tried the loudest voice on Showtime, which was not good and largely made up, you might be like, I’ve already seen the story. Go watch this movie, please. As I tweeted when I came out of the press screening, I said, every woman who wants to work in any business should see Bombshell. Why did I say that? While I said it for two reasons. One, and I think this is very important, it’s refreshing to see women in the workplace portrayed as vibrant, energetic. And here’s the most important part competent professionals rather than the greatest complainers, wet blankets or nonentities that they usually are. You know, no girls allowed clubs. Right. That’s how business is so often been portrayed. And when the woman does show up in entertainment, everyone’s like, yeah, this does suck, but it doesn’t in real life and it shouldn’t. And I don’t like that portrayal of women in the work environment. So I was very happy to see women portrayed as real commodities here. That was great. But then also, of course, number two, it’s important to see how some men emphasis on some.

This isn’t an indictment of men in general at all in any way. This is like a war law contract. But how some men try to cut down or take advantage of those vibrant, energetic and competent professional women and even some of the other ones, you know, everybody nobody should be targeted like this. Now, obviously, the big problem with Bombshell is that it’s about women who work or worked at Fox News, which makes them incredibly unsympathetic. And I think that many critics can’t see past that fact, which is why the movie is such a low Rotten Tomatoes score. And to be fair, the movie does totally sweep under the rug Megan Kelly’s horrific comment about Santa Claus, because, you know, the movie needs Megan Kelly to be their hero. And I guess in some ways it would have been nice if they had portrayed her as the complicated, if she was heroic in this in this specific situation that she is right. Megan Kelly is someone who was very instrumental in a great a great development here about exposing this type of behavior. But she’s also been a lot of really bad things. I mean, the Santa Claus comment, if you didn’t know about that, that controversy and you should, because what she did should never be forgotten, and especially because she’s continued to make comments in the same vein, you wouldn’t have probably maybe even recognize it if you weren’t if you didn’t already know about it and weren’t aware.

And also, by the way, speaking of making Kelli, the idea that she is the one woman who was able to say no to Roger, Roger Ailes advances yet still climb the ladder at Fox News to the very top. Well, it just doesn’t make any sense. And considering all the other horrible things Megyn Kelly has done, I wouldn’t put it past her to have lied about this. But you know what? At least she led the charge even if she didn’t want to be personally involved person or she didn’t lead the charge. But as you’ll see from the movie, she was she was key to its success. The person who led the charge is Cadman’s Gretchen Carlson, who I think quite admirably is seen trying to change things, at least on her own, show her own little corner of Fox News, which is a punishment for not getting along with the guys on Fox and Friends. Very powerful stuff in that regard. Now, I’ve never watched Fox News, so I don’t know if Gretchen Carlson actually did try to do these things. But it’s interesting to see her trying so hard even when her boss and her audience aren’t interested. Hard truths about television, you know, what is your audience want to see? But then there’s also the line of what’s responsible. Even if they want to see it, you shouldn’t you know, you shouldn’t reward that behavior necessarily. That’s a whole other movie.

Now, Margot Robbie is playing a fictional character, but her experiences in the movie and her emotional reactions to them are all too real. And that realness is the important thing here, because while you should keep in mind that, yes, this is Fox News, what happened at Fox News has also happened and continues to happen in many professional environments across the globe. It just so happens that Fox News was a major turning point for, again, exposing that behavior. And so that’s where this movie takes place. I mean, that’s how it went down. That’s what are you going to do about it and the situations that these women find themselves in and how they try to navigate them both personally and professionally while trying to maintain their dignity and keep their careers going? Well, those situations are portrayed with astounding realism. There is one conversation which, according to the news reports, actually took place. It’s not with one of the three leads, but with a reporter talking to her superior about a dream posting only to fight to only to realize during the conversation that he’s actually propositioning her if she really wants the job and the thought process that’s in her head that we hear in real time is one that every single woman has experienced. It’s a. Amazing and important to get out there, and the casting for the male characters is also strong. There is the almost unrecognizable John Lithgow as Roger Ailes, who makes him a real person, a monstrous person, of course, but they don’t.

You know, this isn’t a movie about Fox and it’s politics. It’s a movie about what happened there in terms of sexual harassment. So if you’re if you are a Fox News fan, you know, the movie’s not going to you. I mean, everybody should see this movie. I would feel bad if anyone turned away from it for other reasons. But, you know, it’s not a caricature of Roger Ailes. Rob Delaney as Megan Kelley’s producer, who is her friend, but, you know, wants to keep his job, which I think is as realistic Mark Duplass as Kelly’s supportive husband. But also there’s the wrinkle of her being the breadwinner of the family. And I thought that was portrayed very interestingly. And then there’s Malcolm McDowell in a small role as Rupert Murdoch, but even more so actor brothers Ben Laughlin, Josh Lawson as the Murdoch brothers, dead ringers for the Murdoch brothers, who, you know, again, this is a real it’s unfortunately the way things usually go. They don’t really care about what Ailes is done. They’re just looking for a reason to get rid of him. But, you know, sometimes that’s the way things work. You know, things might not fall in your favor for the reasons that you want them to, but who cares? They fall in your favor. And so I think this movie is very interesting and realistic in that regard as well. Now, there are also a ton of fun cameos, like a lot of them, which are not only fun, but show how many people take the subject matter seriously and support this movie, which I think is wonderful.

But the real stars, of course, are our trio. Charlize Theron becomes Megan Kelly. It’s uncanny, but the idealized version of Megan Kelly, the one that NBC thought they’d hired away from Fox, only to then discover that you can take the reporter out of Fox, but you can’t take the fox out of the reporter. At least this one, Megan Kelly, wishes that she was actually this version of herself. Charlize Theron is amazing. She’s like the ideal businesswoman because they left out all the bad parts about Megan Kelly. All right. So Nicole Kidman also does an amazing job portraying a professional woman from little things like how she holds her pen, like talk about an actor. That was astounding. I was like that little little touches like Meryl Streep level man. Maybe some of it rubbed off on her. I’m Big Little Lies season due to losing her temper with Robbie over how women should be more loyal to each other at work. That was an amazing give and take between the two of them, the complexities of the politics of the workplace and how people, women don’t feel other women will look out for them or that they are going to be able to advance their careers. Oh my God, it was amazing.

And then also Nicole Kidman trying to hide her pain from her kids. That was very small, but I felt it. And then there’s Margot Robbie in a role that easily could have been unsympathetic, considering that she’s trying to get ahead largely on her looks. And you look all everyone looks beautiful in this movie. But Margot, Robbie here will not only break your heart, which is amazing and great, considering she’s just trying to get ahead on her looks. But Margot Robbie turns it into a very relatable role because it’s someone who’s out of her depth and, you know, just, you know, so, you know, she saw a potential shortcut, but she didn’t realise with the what exactly the price was. I don’t want to give too much away about that. But it was it was Margot. Robbie did a great job. Kate McKinnon also had some great scenes, but basically disappears after the first act, which was kind of weird bombsite. So I would tell you, the bombshell is a perfect movie about very imperfect people, but it is the best depiction yet of the complicated situation. Women find themselves in the workplace and it deserves to be seen. So that’s my review of Bombshell. I’m curious to hear your own thoughts down below. Don’t put any spoiler if you have spoiler your comments, please mark them as such. Subscribe today. And of course, as always, you can check out some more videos right now from.

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