Cinema Review: Morning Glory (2010)

As soon as Harrison Ford shows up in Morning Glory, you're left in no doubt that this is the most engaged and entertaining he's been in years - perhaps dating back to The Fugitive. Amusingly, his best role in ages sees him playing a curmudgeonly grouch with a giant chip on his shoulder who seems to hate everyone and everything. He's Mike Pomeroy, one-time respected news anchor, now relegated to the little leagues. Worse, he's forced into presenting a struggling breakfast TV show called Daybreak (the unintended irony of which will not be lost on most UK viewers) by an upstart young producer intent on turning its - and his - fortunes around. But before Ford threatens to hog most of the words in this review, let's get one thing straight: he's a supporting player. The aforementioned young producer is the film's central character, Becky Fuller (Rachel McAdams), hired on a hunch by Jeff Goldblum's bastard exec.

McAdams is practically heroic in this movie, and not just in the usual protagonist sense. She carries it along on her shoulders, investing the part with masses of energy and likeability - not a scene goes by (and she's in nearly every one) in which she isn't working like a mad thing. It could be exhausting to watch, but instead it's hugely engaging and engrossing. At the start of the film, she's fired from her previous producing job; a subsequent montage shows her being rejected multiple times by prospective employers. She only manages to get the Daybreak job through sheer desperate begging, and it's thought of as a poisoned chalice anyway, as its ratings are in an apparently terminal nosedive. Cue a typical underdog-comes-good story told very well indeed, with a lively tempo and an enjoyable sense of humour that stems from the characters rather than being forced in like a bad sitcom. You do have to feel for weathermen though, who always seem the butt of the joke.

Much of the film has echoes of TV show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - one of Aaron Sorkin's rare blips - but where that failed (it was set behind the scenes on a comedy show, but the comedy bits weren't funny), Morning Glory succeeeds (it is funny, despite depicting the world of news reporting rather than comedy). The winning characters - and the unscrupulous slimeballs - are all well written and immaculately performed. The only element that comes across as rather rote and unnecessary is the romantic subplot with Patrick Wilson, which is little more than window dressing - an apparent concession to genre convention. Director Roger Michell has past experience in quality comedy-drama, though (he directed Notting Hill), and he keeps a knowledgeable, sturdy hand on proceedings, ensuring they never dip too far into gushy sentiment.



Summary
Snappily written, tightly directed and very well performed, Morning Glory is a triumph. For Ford it could be the start of a career renaissance, and for McAdams, perhaps a deserved stepping stone to bigger stardom.