ARCHIVE REVIEW: "Morning Glory"

On Homevideo and VOD:  At Home In Your Home

Morning Glory didn't make Rachel McAdams into the new Julia Roberts/Katherine Heigl/Sandra Bullock (it grossed around $53M worldwide), despite the strong pedigree of having been written by Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada), and directed by Roger Michell (Notting Hill). It's not really a romantic comedy at all, nor was it intended to be--Becky Fuller (McAdams) meets Adam Bennett (Patrick Wilson) early on, and there's not much in the way of them being together. The picture is actually more of a Broadcast News-lite, with Becky coming to the dying newsroom of a network morning show, and bringing it back to life. Reflecting the media world's new reality, this time around there's little handwringing about the fact that Becky succeeds by dumbing down the show and making it tabloid and You Tube-friendly; that's just taken for granted (which pretty much tears the guts out of any hope for a smart commentary on those themes). Instead, the film comes to center on the virtual father-daughter relationship that develops between Becky and Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford), the bristly and arrogant old-school anchor whose journalistic principles are mostly equated here with ego. McAdams and Ford have charisma to spare and act off each other marvelously, the strong supporting cast includes Diane Keaton, John Pankow, and Jeff Goldblum, and the Michell/McKenna team keeps things moving and amusing. It all makes for a perfectly pleasant couple of hours that has arrived in its true home on the small screen.