Review: Morning Glory - *

Friday night, Amantha and I went the UltraLuxe Theater at the Anaheim Garden Walk to see Morning Glory.  I was looking forward to seeing the film because I was in the mood for the comedy the advertising led me to believe I would be seeing.  However what I found was an uneven film that often seemed confused as to if it was the light hearted and somewhat silly comedy I was anticipating or a serious realistic look at the world of TV morning show production.  There were things that occurred in the film that would have suited one of those genres but did not easily straddle both.

Morning Glory stars Rachel McAdams as Becky a local New Jersey morning show producer who has always dreamed (since she was 8?) of producing the Today Show.  After being laid off she is reluctantly hired by Jerry Barnes (Jeff Goldblum) to land the job of Executive Producer for the low rated, last place morning show on the IBS network (a fictional rival of ABC, CBS, & NBC).   The show is called Daybreak and is hosted by Colleen Peck (Diane Keaton) and Paul McVee (Ty Burrell).  Becky immediately shakes things up by firing the sleazy McVee and replacing him with former legendary evening news anchor, Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford).  Pomeroy was forced from his anchor chair before he was ready to leave and bitterly sits around while the network is still paying the remainder of his contract.  Becky uses the fact the contract can be voided if he refuses a reasonable offer to work from the network.  He joins the show even though he believes the “fluffy” pieces on the show are not real news and are therefore beneath him.  Patrick Wilson also shows up as a news magazine producer who begins to see Becky and says repeatedly that Pomeroy is the 3^rd worst person in the world.

The movie features the expected “the show is cancelled if you can’t improve the ratings’ storyline, as well as the “I used to be like you” moment between Becky and Pomeroy.  Neither of these really adds much tension or heart.  The ideas Becky uses to improve the shows ratings are just the usual sometime “kooky” things you see on a regular basis on morning show.  Ironically the thing that seems to help the show’s rating the most is a hard news story Pomeroy gets before the other networks.  This completely goes against the philosophy of Becky and the film.  Both of which preach that a morning show is not the place for hard news. 

I am sure that part of the reason I didn’t like the film was the marketing (something I will get into more in a future post about mis-marketing films) and if I watch the film again in a year when it’s on cable I may enjoy it more.  That being said, I was expecting a film more in line with other TV news/production comedies like James L Brooks’ Broadcast News, Switching Channels starring Burt Reynolds, or the star studded Soapdish.  At the very least, given they share the same screenwriter I expected something with the wit and pace of The Devil Wears Prada.  Morning Glory just didn’t have the pacing to convey any feeling of a high pressure TV environment.

The cast was fine but nothing special.  McAdams was very likeable but her character made strange and often, in the case of the end, unbelievable decisions that only seemed to work out only by dumb luck.  Wilson seemed wasted as her love interested.  His character really served no purpose except to take up screen time and add a bit of romance.  We could have simply heard her mention his character once or twice and the fact they were sleeping together (what appeared to be the extent of their relationship) without ever having seen him.  Ford’s character was so gruff and not much else that he just never was that interesting.   Only Keaton’s role as a Diane-Sawyer-former-beauty-queen-turned-news-reporter-turned-morning-show-host was spot on.  I would have rather the whole movie focused on her character as she was clearly acting as though she were in the movie I expected to see. 

As a whole, I found the movie suffered from what seemed to be a lack-luster effort on the part of most everyone involved. 

P.S.: Something that bugged throughout the movie was that they never mention what IBS stands for.  NBC is the National Broadcasting Company, ABC is the American Broadcasting Company, and CBS is the Columbia Broadcasting System.  So what is IBS?  I found myself thinking about this quite a bit during the film.  The only thing I know IBS to stand for is Irritable Bowel Syndrome and I don’t that was it, but who knows?