Above is the new trailer for Bombshell (courtesy EllenTube), the Jay Roach-directed feature about the women who brought down corpulent, sexist Fox News creator Roger Ailes. Those women (two are real, one is fictional) are played by Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie and this trailer makes it a point to show how much of an ensemble piece the movie will be. All three leads will definitely have some heavy lifting though it seems that Theron’s portrayal of Megyn Kelly will likely get the most attention. Theron looks strikingly similar to Kelly in the trailer and sounds exactly like her too. Don’t be surprised when people start suggesting Theron could nab her second Oscar for her work in this. Also don’t be surprised if people suggest the same for John Lithgow, who looks unrecognizable as Ailes.
The movie will be bittersweet for some. While we celebrate the fight from these women and we applaud the downfall of Ailes, Fox News is still a complete cesspool and Ailes never really faced justice because of his passing just months after his ouster at Fox. The struggle continues and while Gretchen Carlson, Megyn Kelly and others fought valiantly and achieved a lot, the soul of Fox is lost and gone forever and nothing can bring it back…because it was never really there. And Fox really hasn’t lost any power since the Ailes scandal, in fact it’s more powerful than ever. Fox News is so powerful that one of its biggest fans sit in the White House and makes policy decisions based on what he hears on the network. If that’s not power, I don’t know what is.
But back to the Ailes scandal: this was a major story and a pivotal moment for the television news industry and the Me Too movement. It’s good that it’s being told, even if it didn’t have as happy an ending as one would want.
