Review: Morning Glory

Rachel McAdams plays an ambitious TV producer fired from her last gig, who lands a job producing the “Daybreak” morning show for a struggling (and fictitious) network. Her boss (Jeff Goldblum) is sceptical about her chances of boosting the ratings of the apparent worst-rated morning show on TV, but gives her a shot anyway. She gets off to a rough start by rubbing demanding TV anchor Diane Keaton the wrong way, and also cans lecherous co-anchor Ty Burrell. Her most risky move of all, however, is in replacing Burrell with seasoned ‘hard’ newsman Harrison Ford. Ford, previously happy to wait out the rest of his contract instead of having to resort to being wasted on material he considers beneath him. However, McAdams strongarms him (in a legal/contractual sense) into appearing on the show as a balance to Keaton’s plastic Martha Stewart/Katie Couric persona. The change is an extremely bumpy one as Ford stubbornly refuses to engage in any patter, let alone cover the ‘lighter’ stories, and he and Keaton even comically butt heads on who gets the last word.

As Goldblum brings more bad news about the show’s imminent demise, McAdams struggles to think of new ideas and innovations to keep the ship running even just a little bit longer, including making the weatherman Matt Molloy a more integral part of the show (i.e. Making him do crazy shit on air just for a laugh). Meanwhile, McAdams has to juggle work demands with the demands of a new relationship with fellow TV producer Patrick Wilson. John Pankow plays one of McAdams’ few friends and confidants at work.

This 2010 comedy from director Roger Michell (“Venus”, and “Notting Hill”, not my favourite romantic film) and writer Aline Brosh McKenna (“The Devil Wears Prada”, similarly overrated, and “27 Dresses”) mostly suffers from a lack of originality, to be honest. It’s a watchable film, there are some very funny moments, but do we really need another film about TV news? Hell, the character played by Rachel McAdams isn’t all that different to the Anne Hathaway character in “The Devil Wears Prada”, except instead of being intimidated by a bitchy Meryl Streep, this character has to deal with a grumpy Harrison Ford and a demanding Diane Keaton. The character dynamics are very much the same (hell John Pankow is like Stanley Tucci’s character in “Prada” minus the ‘gay’ factor). So in no way is this even remotely new or surprising material (a watered-down “Broadcast News”, anyone?), and that hurts it a great deal. The film doesn’t say anything new about TV that I could see, and easily could’ve been made twenty or thirty years ago in much more substantive efforts (Like I said, “Broadcast News”, anyone?). Then again, I don’t think any movie about TV has been anywhere near as good as 1976’s “Network”, which still applies very well to today’s TV.

The other problem with the film is a surprising one; Rachel McAdams. Aside from her miscasting in “Mean Girls” (she was about 10 years too old for starters), I normally find McAdams one of the most charismatic of young female movie stars going around at the moment. Here, however, her presence is like a combination of an early, perky Sally Field on crack (as opposed to a regular early, perky Sally Field, who I often loved) and a female Woody Allen, to the point where the perkiness of the former and the hand-wringing neuroses of the latter come together to form a level of spasticity that is frankly unbearable at times. The scenes where she struggles to juggle work and romance are especially appalling, not helped by the fact that Patrick Wilson’s character comes across as a complete doormat. Occasionally, McAdams’ natural charm shines through (and she looks absolutely beautiful), but not often enough for me. Besides, as much as she’s not miscast in the role, I’m surprised Anne Hathaway and in particular Amy Adams didn’t get the role (They’re three of the best young actresses going around, by the way). Adams is great at the perky, earnest thing without going overboard, and I saw Adams all over this (not sure if she’d be able to make the neurotic aspects any more palatable, though).

Much better is Harrison Ford, who despite adopting Clint Eastwood’s irritatingly forced growl from “Gran Torino” is perfectly cast and occasionally quite funny as the dour, serious newsman looking for something to genuinely sink his teeth into. His moments with Diane Keaton are easily the film’s best and funniest (most of the other laughs go to the long-suffering but eager weatherman, played by Matt Molloy, though there’s an hilarious gag at the expense of former President Jimmy Carter too). I don’t normally like Ford’s forays into comedy (anyone remember his bored performance in “Sabrina”? Just ‘coz the character was a dullard didn’t mean his performance had to be tedious) but he works fine here. He has had a tendency to be far too morose and dull in recent years, but here the character has a little weathered, gruff charm about him and the lesser qualities of his character are mostly used for comic effect anyway. Diane Keaton thankfully dials down her Woody-esque, neurotic tendencies that always shit me (especially appreciated since McAdams dials things up) and plays a quite believable morning show host I must say, though she doesn’t actually end up with a whole helluva lot to do compared to the other two leads. Jeff Goldblum, as usual, steals his every scene, as does Ty Burrell, who disappears far too early for my liking. John Pankow is especially solid here, though Patrick Wilson is once again the world’s most useless romantic lead. This guy’s got as much screen presence as a wet newspaper, it boggles my mind that he continually manages to get work.

I also have a lesser but still genuine issue with the film’s ending, because the central character in my view makes a choice for her career that is based more on the necessity of a happy ending than anything resembling real life. In fact, I take issue with any suggestion that making the other choice would’ve been any less of a happy ending. It just wouldn’t be as neat and tidy. So what? Though, since the film is entirely formula, it makes sense for the ending to follow suit, I suppose.

Look, this isn’t a bad film, but it’s an unnecessary and formulaic one, not always funny, and suffers from a sometimes irritating lead performance.

Rating: C+