Review of Morning Glory (2010) by Gus B — 08 Aug 2012

Morning Glory is a romantic comedy from one end to the other. It retains every watermark of the genre short of a kid with the lisp and a dog with bad eyesight. All the familiar elements are here: The plucky post-college girl, the wise-cracking assistant, the bitchy professional, the hunky love interest, the grouchy old professional, the smart-alecky dialogue, the sex scene that begins like advanced aerobics class. And of course a running gag, in this case a set of malfunctioning doorknobs. This might all be for nothing if it weren't for a wonderful performance by Harrison Ford.

The movie is an odd retread of Broadcast News, another much better romantic comedy about television news. This one stars Rachel McAdams as plucky go-getter Becky Fuller, a kid fresh out of college who wants to make it in television news. She is inexperienced and unhardened by the realities of the day to day grind. After pounding the pavement looking for work, she lands a job as an executive producer for a 47 year-old morning news program called Daybreak. The problem? The show has been in the ratings crapper for years. Pressed up against Good Morning America, it is a rating disaster. The crew has grown cynical to the point of cliche and so have the morning anchors Colleen Peck (Diane Keaton), a bitchy Diane Sawyer-type whose duties have resigned to such humiliations as an on-air pap smear, and Paul McVee (Ty Burrell), a sleazy half-wit with a foot fetish.

Becky's assignment seems easy enough: Turn the show around. That includes finding Colleen a less obnoxious co-anchor. She fires Paul and goes on a manhunt to find a replacement. A burst of inspiration points her in the direction of Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford), a legendary news anchor but a lousy human being - he is described as the third worst person alive. He is currently out of work and Becky is, at first, excited to ask him to be on board. He says no but she, undaunted, finds a loophole in his contract.

Pomeroy is a piece of work. He is a boozy curmudgeon who has no use for his fellow human being and certainly no use for a morning news program. He wants only hard news stories and isn't interested in the fluff nonsense that goes on on the morning news. He is also difficult to work with, picking and choosing the few stories that he is willing to report on.

It is Pomeroy that raises Morning Glory above the usual romantic comedy cliche. The movie is fun entertainment but Harrison Ford makes it something else. Sitting behind the desk of a bright and sunny news set, wearing a dark suit, he really does look stuffy and uncomfortable - out of place you might say. He is a hard, seasoned newsman, proud to have kept alive the legacy of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. Yet, he is disillusioned by the idea of news becoming fluff entertainment and tabloid garbage. He is also lonely, as he reveals in a beautiful moment when he warns Becky not to get married to the job. This is Harrison Ford's best performance since The Fugitive because it shows him developing a believable character who has arrived in his sixties having eaten up his opportunities and now suffers from an emotional stomach ache. Something of Harrison Ford himself lands in this character. Ford is an actor who has never looked comfortable granting interviews and some of that comes out when he is sitting behind that desk.

Morning Glory didn't end up where I expected but it wasn't exactly earth-shattering either. This is your basic romantic comedy, but a good one, very sweet and very funny. It is fun and not likely to stay in your memory, save for Ford's performance. Maybe you'll remember the malfunctioning doorknob too, I certainly will.