Advertisem*nt
SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
Supported by
SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT
Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie star in a story about the fall of Roger Ailes.
Video
transcript
0:00
/
2:16
-
0:00
transcript
‘Bombshell’ | Anatomy of a Scene
The director Jay Roach narrates a sequence featuring Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie.
Hi, I’m Jay Roach. I am the director of the film “Bombshell.” So in this scene, we see Margot Robbie, who’s playing Kayla, take a call from— clearly, from Roger Ailes’ office. And Kate McKinnon, who’s playing Jess, in the cubicle with her. We have just seen, a few scenes back, that Roger is harassing Kayla right this minute and is now pressuring her to come back up. We’ve also seen that Kate McKinnon’s character has warned her not to talk about it. So right away, it’s about staying silent. The score is playing this sort of haunting, all women’s voices as the instrumentation, almost Phillip Glass thing that Teddy Shapiro came up with to emphasize how alone she is on this walk. And she walks into this elevator and thinks she can be alone. But in walks her actual idol, Megyn Kelly, played by Charlize Theron. And now, two women, who both have secrets, who both have been harassed, are in the same tight space and won’t say a word to each other. And they’re going to ride this elevator up to the floor where Roger Ailes is. And this shot here is such a great example of Barry Ackroyd’s incredibly humanistic operating. He’s just watching the people and paying attention to what they’re reacting to, and finding the composition off of the performance. In comes Gretchen Carlson, played by Nicole Kidman, who’s now a third woman in a different level of predicament, a different level of being harassed by Roger. And they’re all stuck in this space. So this was a very important scene, because it’s the only time in the whole movie when all three women are in the same place. And we wanted a kind of combination of capturing the predicament of them being in the elevator but not supporting each other, and seeing that in the wide shot, that you could actually jump around to watch each woman’s face in the three-shot and compose for that. And as Megyn watches them walk away, she knows that Margo, especially, is walking into Roger’s lair, where almost all of the harassment happened at Fox.
By Manohla Dargis
- Bombshell
- Directed by Jay Roach
- Biography, Drama
- R
- 1h 48m
Bright and bouncy until it turns grim, “Bombshell” is a fictionalized account of the women who brought down Roger Ailes, the chairman and chief executive of Fox News. Helped bring him down is probably more accurate given that he was ousted by Rupert Murdoch, who founded Fox News in 1996 before handing the reins to Ailes. Since then, the network has become a ratings powerhouse and hothouse of right-wing talking points, a sea of white faces and dolled-up women in skirts and high heels. Ailes is now gone but the talking points, high ratings, skirts and heels remain.
The movie’s title is clever, cleverness being its modus operandi. The story, after all, is about female employees who, with icy smiles and iron ambition, worked for a conservative political force who institutionalized the harassment of women. So, how do you make heroines out of characters that some in the audience will see as deeply compromised if not outright villainous? For starters, you cast on the offensive by having Charlize Theron play Megyn Kelly, Nicole Kidman do Gretchen Carlson and Margot Robbie break hearts as the fictional Kayla Pospisil.
Image
The stars, with their unimpeachable talent, filmographies and feminist cred, are a shrewd way of blunting skepticism. Even so, the characters are tricky, especially Megyn and Gretchen, who come with ideological baggage that complicates Hollywood’s holy grail of relatability. The movie wants, needs us to like them, which may be why it breaks the fourth wall early on with Megyn directly addressing the audience, looking into the camera as she tours the network offices in a slightly tight red, white and blue dress. One man yells out a compliment, another looks her up and down. She keeps on walking, focused, hips swinging like knives.
Having her talk to the viewer immediately makes the audience part of a very special Megyn Kelly tour group. It creates intimacy, almost a little conspiracy between you and her, so when she starts chatting about Roger (John Lithgow, galumphing with verve), including his history advising Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, you lean in and listen. Tell us more. You’re getting the inside dope from one of the network’s biggest stars. When Megyn says that Roger is always watching and we see the many surveillance monitors inside his own personal panopticon, it brings a shiver. Tell us everything.
Directed by Jay Roach, from a script by Charles Randolph (“The Big Short”), “Bombshell” opens not long before the first Republican presidential candidates’ debate in August 2015. Kelly moderated it with two other Fox News anchors, but she was the one who drew national attention because of her questioning of Donald J. Trump and what it wrought. “You once told a contestant on ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees,” Kelly said. “Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?” Afterward, Trump said she had “behaved very badly” and went on a Twitter rampage against her.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit andlog intoyour Times account, orsubscribefor all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber?Log in.
Want all of The Times?Subscribe.
Advertisem*nt
SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT
