Sunday, December 12, 2010

Morning Glory

imdb link  Photos

Plot: Becky Fuller (Rachel McAdams) is a young TV producer who takes over DayBreak, a struggling national morning show. DayBreak has two anchors, the overly-serious Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford) and the catty Colleen Peck (Diane Keaton). Pomeroy thinks doing fluffy, frivolous stories wrecks his hard-news reputation. Peck is catty off-screen and glibbly friendly on-screen.

Becky struggles to get Pomeroy to cooperate, while she tries to spice the show up before it is canceled

Review: Morning Glory's strength turns on Becky, the Rachel McAdams character. She is a young 'every-woman' who is trying to get by in a strange world. The film is best when showing her in her strange modern sit-com situations, which she overcomes with her spunkiness, spiritedness, and directness.

Morning Glory is an update of the 35 year old Mary Tyler Moore Show, where a young producer tries to make a TV news show. In both shows, the cute female producers are not interested in romance, but instead want to make a career for themselves in television.

The movie is OK; it misses because Pomeroy, the Harrison Ford character, is too inhuman and stiff. The main relationship is between Becky and Pomeroy, and while it advances during the movie, Pomeroy is too weak a character to save the movie. The other supporting characters were even weaker. The Mary Tyler Moore Show succeeded because of the strong supporting characters especially clueless anchor Ted Baxter and tough newsman Lou Grant.

The sound track was good, but there is no soundtrack on iTunes -- all the songs are posted on this site. The story could have been told in a visual way, and at first I thought that it was adapted from a stage-play (but it wasn't.)

Cast: Amy Adams, Harrison Ford, Diane Keaton

Directed by: Roger Michell

Written by: Aline Brosh McKenna who also wrote the screenplay for similar themed
movies like Devil Wears Prada, and 27 Dresses

Rating: 2.5 stars; Actually a more substantive a film than it seems. It has its fun moments, but the sum total does not measure up to 3 stars.

More: This movie could easily be a television show pilot.
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