Morning Glory: Warmed-over movie leftovers

Written by Mark Schumann, Father of Three
Thursday, 03 March 2011 11:49

With the Oscars history for one more year, we now enter “the slow movie spring” with fewer new films opening before the summer blockbusters begin to appear. That leaves us to choose DVDs, new and classic, to create nutritious movie menus for our families. This week The Reel Dad looks at a film coming soon to DVD, Morning Glory.

Movies like Morning Glory leave a bitter after-taste. They portray worlds that are impossible to believe, pretend to offer meaningful messages to audiences hungry for a moral and preserve dated notions of how women in the workplace must act in order to professionally progress. Such films — usually comedies with a slight dramatic edge — flood the movie market each year at a rate that makes them almost impossible to tell apart.

Morning Glory, on the surface, looks promising. Its star, Rachel McAdams, is appealing even if easy to confuse with Jennifer Garner. And its primary supporting characters — the sparring host and hostess of a struggling network morning news show — come to life in the capable talents of Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton. But confusion in the cinema kitchen leaves this would-be entree lacking in substantive nutrition. Morning Glory feels as if it has been hastily assembled from the leftovers of such classics as Broadcast News and Network. Nothing is original, relevant or amusing. Only when this frozen movie dinner thaws do we realize how much taste we have missed.

McAdams plays an ambitious young woman from central casting. We know she is on her way to the top because she drinks too much coffee, remains incapable of developing real relationships, and clumsily tries to endear herself to co-workers. We have seen this character many times and, except for the extraordinary Holly Hunter in Broadcast News in the 1980s, most renditions are generic. McAdams, repetitious at best, fails to offer anything new to capture our interest.

As the film begins, McAdams’ character has the good fortune to be fired as a producer of a local morning news program in New Jersey and immediately hired for a similar role at a national network based in Manhattan. But the morning show she produces is in the ratings hole with an over-the-top anchor (Keaton) and an inefficient staff. So when McAdams gets the idea to hire an over-the-hill anchor (Ford) to join Keaton she knows the sparks will fly and the ratings will soar. But she isn’t quite prepared for what follows.

If Morning Glory stayed with this storyline, and developed the relationship between the always appealing Keaton and Ford, the film might have had a chance. But the script insists on giving McAdams a life away from the show and introduces a sudsy subplot with Patrick Wilson playing a television producer who never seems to work but always has time for romance. Their dreary interactions veer unnecessarily from the central narrative causing the film to lose what little momentum it has.

Still there are fun moments in Morning Glory, especially from the grand Ms. Keaton, who should be required to make at least one film per year simply to make us smile. Here she knows she is a supporting player but refuses to let her subordinated casting stifle her endless creativity. Keaton’s Colleen Peck is a magical creation, with an ego and ambition in widescreen, as if Norma Desmond or Margo Channing were suddenly relegated to morning television. In a better film, Keaton could have been Oscar-nominated yet again. In Morning Glory she simply makes us want her to make another movie soon.

Morning Glory is a would-be film trapped in the suggestion of what might have been. Perhaps, 20 years ago we might have considered this a nutritious film. But our diets have changed over the years.

Film Nutritional Value:

Morning Glory

* Content: Medium. With a premise that is tired, and an approach that is less than fresh, Morning Glory feels like movie leftovers.

* Entertainment: Medium. Whenever Diane Keaton is on screen the film is great fun and shows its unfulfilled potential.

* Message: Low. The only message of Morning Glory is to be sure to watch the early part of any morning news program.

* Relevance: Low. Any opportunity to laugh is always relevant but Morning Glory lets the laughs falter for long stretches.

* Opportunity for Dialogue: Low. After you share this film, you may find yourself at a loss for words to share with your children, unless you like to talk about morning news shows.

(Morning Glory is rated PG-13 for some sexual content including dialogue, language and brief drug references. The film runs 107 minutes.)

2 Popcorn Buckets

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