All work and no play makes 'Morning Glory' dull
Harrison Ford plays Mike Pomeroy and Rachel McAdams plays Becky Fuller in the movie MORNING GLORY, directed by Roger Mitchell and released by Paramount Pictures November 12, 2010. Credit: Macall Polay Photo/
She's never been arrested, never gone to rehab, and obviously never tried to conceal a firearm outside of "Sherlock Holmes." But Rachel McAdams is a movie star, nonetheless, and "Morning Glory" is proof positive: When the Canadian-born redhead appears - as she has in "The Notebook" and "The Time-Traveler's Wife" - she's all you see. And it's a very good thing for this generally woeful comedy, which delivers, only inadvertently, a dark commentary on the state of the young and unemployed.
If director Roger Michell ("Notting Hill") had tossed out the emo songs and used the music from, say, "Psycho," McAdam's frenetic Becky Fuller might have come across as a nascent serial killer. Her obsession with work - she's the producer of the early a.m. "Good Morning New Jersey," until she's fired - is funny, sort of, but also disturbingly desperate. She has no life outside work; she's defined by her job; her neediness borders on the pathological.
Whatever drives her - and fear of unemployment is certainly a factor - her own mother (Patti D'Arbanville) calls it "embarrassing." That painful scene echoes through the film.
Becky finds a job, of course - the low-paying, unrewarding job of turning a fourth-ranked network morning show called "Daybreak" into a success. The network is financially crippled by its richly compensated but profoundly unproductive senior citizens. Most notable among them: the embittered ex-anchor Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford), a combination of Dan Rather and Ted Baxter.
Becky's brainstorm: Mike in the morning. Contractually, he can't say no. But he can make her life miserable.
McAdam's energy (and, yes, her looks) keep Michell's movie rolling, through inexplicable behavior, bad wardrobe, the waste of Diane Keaton as Mike's on-air antagonist, and the incessant music that serves as sloppily applied mortar between lumpy narrative stones.
Oh, and its confused message: Becky's solution is turning "Daybreak" into the cheesiest of newspop. This is, apparently, a good thing. The argument between entertainment and news, she tells Mike the hard-news dinosaur, has been going on forever, and "your side lost!" So has the argument that Hollywood can make a coherent comedy, if "Morning Glory" is any indication
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