First, give the makeup department their coins, chips, gold doubloons and such now! Because, brava!
And **claps** for the “Bombshell” double entendre. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Next—Theron, Robbie, and Kidman soar in this! The entire ensemble was fantastic. Lithgow was a great Roger Ailes.
Margot Robbie character’s amalgamation of multiple stories was a fantastic addition. The scene between Theron, who plays Megyn Kelly, and Robbie about women standing up for each other so that instances of sexual violence won’t happen to others in the future was an honest conversation about the complexity of reporting sexual assault. It doesn’t start or stop with just holding predators accountable. It also includes changing the culture and social spaces of speaking up and encouraging others to do the same.
The editing was fantastic. The reactions of peripheral characters at seemingly insignificant moments didn’t feel choreographed, but you know it had to be for the scenes to work so well. I applaud all the supporting actors in this, ALL of them—they propelled the screenplay. The film was almost more about their reactions to the bombshell news stories, than the actions and reactions of the main players. To sum it up, there were five main characters—Megyn Kelly (Theron), Gretchen Carlson (Kidman), Kayla (Robbie), Roger Ailes (Lithgow), and all their coworkers, spouses, and friends reacting to their actions.
I loved the ode to blaxploitation cinematography—what an interesting, fitting decision given the “gotcha” journalistic nature of the film. That slight bobble with the camera and immediate zoom-in was great! See below.
The score is intoxicating. Bruh, I cannot get that silent tension from the elevator scene out of my mind! That was an A-1 marketing decision to lead the trailer with that moment, and it served as a perfect climax for the film. Beautifully acted, and it was captured perfectly.
One more thing I wanted to point out: “breaking the fourth wall” during the introduction of a film is a challenging way to start without the tone feeling sloppy. But this film mainly set in a newsroom and is chronicling an event about on-air personalities whose jobs were all about talking directly into the camera, so it felt fitting. One thing that didn’t quite work as seamlessly as I would’ve hoped was the decision to use real photos of Roger Ailes with past U.S. Presidents to fill in his historical backstory for audience. When the film switched from the archival photographs to John Lithgow, the actor portraying Ailes, ’twas a bit jarring.