Morning Glory

Rachel McAdams is the “skillful comedienne” who makes this story about a young producer's efforts to revitalize a morning talk show worth watching. 

Directed by Roger Michell

(PG-13)

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Morning Glory wants to be the “Broadcast News of happy-talk morning shows,” said Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly. But where that 1987 film ventured into a TV newsroom to offer a refreshingly adult mix of romance, repartee, and social observation, this “sillier and more superficial” movie is more like typical morning-show pap. Rachel McAdams plays a producer hoping to save a failing a.m. broadcast by pairing a news veteran (Harrison Ford) with the show’s daffy longtime host (Diane Keaton), said Peter Rainer in The Christian Science Monitor. Yet instead of supporting her hard-news hero, McAdams’ character lets fluff prevail. Morning Glory thinks it’s addressing the dumbing down of TV news, but it’s actually “pandering to the audience that craves the dumbness.” But audiences can’t seriously expect a romantic comedy to “tackle the dilemmas of 21st-century television journalism,” said Andrew O’Hehir in Salon.com. At least we’ve landed a modern-day Mary Tyler Moore in McAdams. This “skillful comedienne” not only turns the world on with her smile; she makes Morning Glory worth watching.