Editorial
Front Page - Friday, November 19, 2010
The Critic's Corner
"Morning Glory"
David Laprad
Have you ever been at home or the office and heard construction taking place? The hammering, drilling and sawing can be a tremendous distraction while you’re trying to relax or concentrate on work.
I experienced something similar while watching “Morning Glory,” a new comedy starring Rachel Adams as Becky, a young television producer who sets out to revive a struggling morning show. While watching the film, I could hear the carpentry behind the scenes. As Becky arrives in New York City to begin her new job, there was a loud buzzing in the background – and BAM, there was Adam, her love interest. Later, when the movie needed a crisis, I heard someone hammering nails – and WHAM, Adam and Becky break up over her workaholic tendencies.
Harrison Ford gets in on the action as the acidic Tom Pomeroy, an award-winning journalist Becky forces out of retirement. He and Becky bump heads for most of the film, but when it’s time for “Morning Glory” to provide a warm fuzzy, he melts like a chocolate bar in a microwave.
I generally don’t like movies that insist on painting by the numbers, and “Morning Glory” is packed with artificially manufactured moments. So why did I walk out of the theater with a huge grin on my face? Because Adams and Ford are wonderful, the dialogue crackles like a live wire and there are big laughs – the kind that I can’t wait to share with friends when we see the movie together.
Mostly, I like “Morning Glory” because of Adams and Ford. Adams delivers a captivating performance as Becky, a work-obsessed ball of barely contained kinetic energy. I love the contrast between her scenes in the television studio, during which she demonstrates authority and pluck as she takes the reins of the show, and her interview with her boss, when she dissolves into a jittery, sputtering mess, and is unable to stop talking, even after she realizes she should have.
Becky is a complex character. She’s confident and unsure, talented but clumsy, and strong but nervous. Adams takes these opposing forces, contains them in some scenes, sets them loose in others, and still makes Becky likeable and funny. In one scene, she arrives for a date with Adam and accidentally tosses her cell phone in the air when she waves at him from across the restaurant. She catches the phone and recovers nicely, turning a silly little gaff into a moment that expresses everything viewers need to know about her.
Ford is just as wonderful as Pomeroy. I’ve been distressed by his apparent lack of a pulse in recent movies, but here, he commands attention every time he appears on the screen, and is downright hilarious to boot. During the first half of the movie, Ford plays the gruff, arrogant old timer to perfection. He hates that Becky figured out how to make him take the co-anchor job, loathes morning show banter and refuses to do any story he feels is beneath him – which is everything.
But when Pomeroy starts trading on-air barbs with his co-anchor, played by Diane Keaton, he comes to life. Their scenes together are inspired, especially the ones in which they both try to be the last person to say goodbye at the end of the show. Comedy is all about timing, and Ford has it down like clockwork. From his delivery, to his expressions, to his energy, he shines in the role. He even sells the moments when Pomeroy gets sentimental.
Performances in comedies rarely win Oscars, but I hope the Academy will buck tradition and recognize the outstanding work Adams and Ford did in “Morning Glory.” Without them, the movie wouldn’t be as good as it is.
That’s not to say “Morning Glory” is otherwise without merit. Like Becky, director Roger Mitchell knows what he’s doing behind the camera. I particularly liked the scene in which Pomeroy arrives on the set of the show for the first time. He stands at the entrance, in the dark, refusing to advance one step farther. He has to be there, but he’s Tom Pomeroy, winner of 16 Peabodies and a Pulitzer and his executive producer is going to come to him!
Also, when the writer, Aline Brosh McKenna, the scribe behind “The Devil Wears Prada,” wasn’t cooking up clichés, she weaved some nice material into her script. Consider Becky’s first production meeting with her staff, and the rather brilliant ways in which McKenna has her demonstrate her muscle as an executive producer.
This is the kind of comedy I enjoy. It’s not obsessed with four letter words, gross out antics, or vulgarity; it just tells a heartwarming, character-centered story in a way that made me smile. My ears are still ringing from the hammering, but I had too much fun to care.
Note: If you’re a fan of news bloopers, stop eating any snacks you’ve purchased the moment you see President Jimmy Carter’s face. I laughed so hard I cried.
Email David Laprad at dlaprad @hamiltoncountyherald.com.
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