January 14th, 1952, the day that changed everything. It was on the frosty morning of this inauspicious day that it first happened. That we cast off the shackles of morning radio and first started turning on our tellies to wake up. 58 years and some 17,000 episodes later we’re still yawning. This is the day the Today Show first aired, the first early morning news and talk show in the history of television. This was the day that made breakfast bigger, with crispy flakes of current events and juicy morsels of weather. This is the day that gave us Morning Ireland. The day that gave us Mr. Motivator. The day that gave us Richard. The day that gave us Judy.
Behind the scenes of such a show is where we find Morning Glory, a new star vehicle for a nebulous Rachel McAdams, supergiant Diane Keaton and, disappearing into a black hole, Harrison Ford. McAdams is Becky Fuller, the ever-plagued producer of the biggest flop on the block, (the very aptly named) Daybreak, a morning show that quickly needs to ditch the perky Pap smear segments and win over the masses with some credibility. As Adrian and Christine can attest, easier said than done, and Becky has her work cut out to save this morning show from cancellation mourning.
McAdams proves game and easily watchable, fresh and able to hold her own against some major Hollywood hitters and scene-stealers at every cut. Ever since her breakout role in Mean Girls she’s always threatened to be a bigger star than she actually is, and here she sharply underplays Becky, reminding us that behind every Punch and Judy pantomime, there’s just a regular person calling the shots.
Diane Keaton also rates high as Colleen, the shrewish female anchor, eager to do anything to get more screen time and lapping up her saucer of milk with every catty barb she trades with co-host Ford. He’s the cranky Cronkite-esque Mike Pomeroy, a serious news man, contractually obliged to be there, and as likely to brighten the viewers’ days as the latest economic bulletin on the 6.01 news. With the exception of Crystal Skull, and the less said the better, Ford hasn’t scored a hit since a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away and unless this is a behemoth blockbuster, don’t expect him going solo on the movie posters for a while.
Working off a script from the writer of The Devil Wears Prada, Morning Glory follows suit with some very similar tailoring, giving us a comedy in which a naïve newbie suffers the wrath of a venomous and unwilling superior. At times it works very well, particularly in the salty exchanges between anchors, but simply falls apart and goes comatose in the final arc. You know what’s going to happen. A fear to follow through on the smart shades of black that came before and pander to the staple of female-led comedies, i.e. tie up all her career woes and loose romantic ends in one pointless flourish of sentimentality over reality, will leave you wishing they’d gone a little bit more Jeremy Kyle than Lorraine Kelly.
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