Review: Morning Glory

Morning Glory stars Rachel McAdams as Becky a young enthusiastic producer who after losing her job as a producer on a New Jersey morning show is offered the position of executive producer on a Good Morning America like morning show called Day Break. Becky feeling the need to not give up on her dreams accepts the position at the struggling news program and has to deal with pulling the show out of dead last and managing its two feuding lead anchors Mike (played by Harrison Ford) and Colleen (played by Diane Keaton).

Now that all that summary stuff is out of the way lets break down this movie shall we. Rachel McAdams plays Becky perfectly in that one moment she is this innocent motivated individual, and then the next she is obsessed with her job and wont let anything come between her and the show. Harrison Ford plays Mike Pomeroy who is essentially your Dan Rather type news personality, he has seen it all, won it all, and has done it all... except morning television. Diane Keaton plays Colleen Peck who is pretty contempt with sitting behind the desk at 5am reporting about how to make Pinatas and doing cooking segments. The chemistry between Ford and Keaton is absolutely fantastic and makes for some great scenes. However the one issue with Fords performance is he plays the character so gruff and at sometimes crazy that I was expecting him to grab someone by the collar and demand his family back at some point of the film.

There is also a romantic subplot involving Patrick WIlson as Adam Bennett, a producer who used to work with Mike. Ultimately I believe that the whole subplot wasn't exactly necessary to the main plot of the movie and that the film could have survived without it. Another major issue with it was how the film tried to be dramatic, while it was understandable where the film was going with these moments tonally I felt it was just played a little too dramatic (and the score at these points definitely did not help).

As for the rest of the cast, Jeff Goldblum as Jerry Barnes the head of the stations news department (at least that's the position I believe the character was) was very enjoyable. Also of note is the actor who played the Day Break weather man (for some reason I can not find out the name of the actor who played him) but he diffidently has some funny little non sequitur type scenes toward the middle of the film. Plus there are some smile inducing cameos that both young and older viewers will enjoy.

All in all its definitely a good film but it has its issues. There was initially some award buzz around this film but I do not really see it to be completely honest.

8/10