Morning Glory is a very good comedy. I'm one of those people who is getting tired of all the formulaic, redundant, and completely improbable rom-coms that are coming out these days. The funny thing is, I'm actually a fan of good romantic comedies! I love While You Were Sleeping and You've Got Mail, but films like You Again and The Bounty Hunter still leave a bad taste in my mouth. Morning Glory isn't a perfect movie by any means, but the great performances (particularly from McAdams and Harrison Ford) made up for much of what the narrative was lacking.
The story centers on a young lady named Becky (McAdams) who has a lot of enthusiasm, but keeps getting the short end of the stick in her career. After being fired from a job at a local TV station, her mother tells her how her relentless talk of one day being a big-time TV producer isgetting "embarrassing". With her confidence having seen better days, she applies to several different places (sometimes sending in multiple resumes and following-up a little too frequently) and eventually gets a position as Executive Producer of a morning television program called "Daybreak", which is notorious for its terrible ratings, sinking morale, and high turnaround. She makes a name for herself the first day on the job by publicly firing the extremely self-centered and inappropriate male anchor and now faces the dilemma of finding a replacement on a virtually non-existing budget.
Luckily, she discovers that celebrated news anchor Mike Pomeroy (Ford) is currently under contract with the news station and if he doesn't perform any journalism duties for a 6 month period the remainder of his $6 million dollar salary will go unpaid. Left with little choice in the matter, Pomeroy grudgingly accepts the position with pretty hilarious results.
Despite how much this movie had going for it, though, it definitely did have its ups and downs. For instance, I felt that the romantic story could have been completely left out as it didn't really add much to the story, and I didn't particularly like the chemistry between them. I also feel like the movie could have involved Becky's relationship with her mother more, as that aspect seemed a little under-utilized. However, I did thoroughly enjoy the old curmudgeon Harrison Ford was channeling as well as the bright and perky Rachel McAdams as she tries to make this very diverse and largely dysfunctional crew work together as they attempt to increase their ratings.
Sometimes in movies like this there's a raunchy/socially inept person who's temperamental transformation seems to happen way too abruptly to believe, which definitely takes you out of the movie. That being said, I thought they handled Ford's character arc with some much-needed subtlety that is seldom seen in this genre. Overall I found this movie very funny and would definitely recommend it! Lara didn't exactly agree with me on this one so it may be more of a guy movie, surprisingly, but regardless I really liked Morning Glory! I give it a solid three stars.
MORNING GLORY is rated PG-13 for some language and mild sexual content.The story centers on a young lady named Becky (McAdams) who has a lot of enthusiasm, but keeps getting the short end of the stick in her career. After being fired from a job at a local TV station, her mother tells her how her relentless talk of one day being a big-time TV producer isgetting "embarrassing". With her confidence having seen better days, she applies to several different places (sometimes sending in multiple resumes and following-up a little too frequently) and eventually gets a position as Executive Producer of a morning television program called "Daybreak", which is notorious for its terrible ratings, sinking morale, and high turnaround. She makes a name for herself the first day on the job by publicly firing the extremely self-centered and inappropriate male anchor and now faces the dilemma of finding a replacement on a virtually non-existing budget.
Luckily, she discovers that celebrated news anchor Mike Pomeroy (Ford) is currently under contract with the news station and if he doesn't perform any journalism duties for a 6 month period the remainder of his $6 million dollar salary will go unpaid. Left with little choice in the matter, Pomeroy grudgingly accepts the position with pretty hilarious results.
Despite how much this movie had going for it, though, it definitely did have its ups and downs. For instance, I felt that the romantic story could have been completely left out as it didn't really add much to the story, and I didn't particularly like the chemistry between them. I also feel like the movie could have involved Becky's relationship with her mother more, as that aspect seemed a little under-utilized. However, I did thoroughly enjoy the old curmudgeon Harrison Ford was channeling as well as the bright and perky Rachel McAdams as she tries to make this very diverse and largely dysfunctional crew work together as they attempt to increase their ratings.
Sometimes in movies like this there's a raunchy/socially inept person who's temperamental transformation seems to happen way too abruptly to believe, which definitely takes you out of the movie. That being said, I thought they handled Ford's character arc with some much-needed subtlety that is seldom seen in this genre. Overall I found this movie very funny and would definitely recommend it! Lara didn't exactly agree with me on this one so it may be more of a guy movie, surprisingly, but regardless I really liked Morning Glory! I give it a solid three stars.
