Mike Pomeroy, Harrison Ford’s grumpy dinosaur of a respectable broadcast news anchor, would hate this movie.
Morning Glory stars Rachel McAdams as a workaholic television producer whose lust for success blinds her to any impact she may be having on her culture. She claims to have great respect for “the news,” but spends each waking moment thinking up new ways to put a weatherman in wacky situations. Not for a moment does she question if this is the best use of the medium. She is simply a regurgitator of norms, swatting down any story idea that isn’t easily digestible over Eggo Waffles. I half expected her to say “you betcha!”
Maybe it was just Ford’s character's jaundiced view of the closing of the American mind, but I found myself unable to just let the good times roll during this would-be agreeable light comedy. Normally I can accept Hollywood fluff for what it is, but Morning Glory raises the bar for lowering standards. It actively celebrates dumbing down the national dialogue.
I kept waiting for the moment when I’d be proven wrong on this – but it never came. Ford’s Pomeroy, gang-pressed into appearing on a vapid morning chat show, is the last of the noble newsmen. When he finally gets the opportunity to prove his mettle, it is exposing a politician at a sex scandal. Come on.
He and McAdams wrap up the film with an implied “understanding,” but it is more phony than the phoniest of Hollywood endings. Ford’s character is there because of a binding contract. I don’t know if McAdams’ young character has the self-awareness to ask herself yet why she’s there.
I’d be more forgiving of Morning Glory if the script were funnier. Grumpy Ford warrants a few yuks, but they are performance-based yuks. It is simply too by-the-numbers to let it championship of anti-intellectualism go by unnoticed. The only thing that’s different about this movie is just how brazen it is with its crass message.
