This shocking, compelling and explosive real-life drama explores the serial sexual abuse at the top of a TV network and is powered by several brilliant and award-worthy performances.
Oscar-nominated Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie are joined by Nicole Kidman to complete an outstanding trio of talent, playing the sharp, smart, professional and highly polished news presenters seeking to bring down the predatory boss of the Fox News TV network, Roger Ailes.
John Lithgow portrays the most powerful man in American TV as a horribly grasping and paranoid figure, who creates a climate of fear in order to maintain his monstrous regime of systematic sexual abuse.
Fox News and Ailes himself lack the cultural resonance here in the UK that they have across the pond, but imagine if Holly Willoughby, Alex Jones and Steph McGovern announced they and a dozen more presenters had been abused by the director general of the BBC, and you’d have some idea of the high-profile shock waves the case caused.
Robbie plays a fictional ambitious new employee called Kayla, whose model looks and sweet nature put her immediately on Ailes’ radar.
However, it’s Theron who dominates the film as Megyn Kelly, Fox’s highest profile journalist, a spiky and demanding presence who describes herself as a lawyer not a feminist, and is more keen on achieving high ratings than popularity with her colleagues.
Kidman plays the least flashy but vital role of Gretchen Carlson, the journalist who sues Ailes when demoted then fired after refusing her boss’s sexual advances.
It was this legal action that lifted the lid on Ailes’ behaviour and made it known to the public.
Sadly, the three actresses only appear together in one brief scene, so viewers are denied the fun of seeing these great stars sparking off each other.
But the sheer volume of testimony is extraordinary and the scale of abuse staggering, especially as we’re left with a postscript which is perhaps the most devastating revelation of all.
Bombshell is in UK cinemas from January 17, 2020.
