Morning Glory (2010) | Review by Mark Leidner
Morning Glory made me feel good in ways that made me feel ashamed of myself, like a pop song coming on in my car. I want to marry Rachel McAdams. I saw myself in her workaholism and thought, “Yes! Finally someone who like me is more committed to work than being present in her personal relationships,” and so when she inevitably succeeds it felt like I was succeeding right along with her. This movie makes the American Dream seem possible, so if you’re depressed because your career is a black hole from which no light escapes, and you’re either at or past thirty and you still haven’t found fulfillment in whatever tedious rituals you thoughtlessly complete in order to get a paycheck, going to see this movie will make you feel better about all that.
To me Harrison Ford is still Han Solo. Who I also want to be. So he’s always watchable. But when he isn’t on the screen, Morning Glory is kind of boring and mind-meltingly fake. But I don’t go to movies for reality and neither should you. Hannah seemed to enjoy it and that’s the only reason I went, but it wasn’t as good as The Next Three Days, even though it received similarly poor reviews. During the movie I thought of the line “Morning Glory is the The Next Three Days of romantic comedies,” and have tried several times to think of arguments that would allow me to say that in good faith; but it’s simply not true. While ridiculous The Next Three Days completely fulfills the prerequisites of its genre; Morning Glory however feels more like one of those kernels at the bottom of the bag that only half-pops. Go see this movie only if you’re extremely easy to please and need to see a charming lie about the triumph of hard work and determination over the vortex of loneliness and self-alienation blind ambition leaves in place of the soul.
Morning Glory (2010) | Review by Hannah Brooks-Motl
We saw so much of ourselves in Morning Glory, especially the scene where Rachel McAdams runs across Midtown in slow motion, high heels, and a pretty dress, ditching her interview with The Today Show because Harrison Ford is making her a frittata live on the set of Daybreak, a competing morning show she’s rescued from imminent cancellation. This is very much like the time we ran all the way to the State Street Market for beer because Mark finally made us a burrito for all the dinners we were owed. Rachel McAdams has a lot of romance in this movie, just none of it very much with the hunk Patrick Wilson. Alas, we saw some of ourselves in this fact as well. McAdams’s relationship with her work, with Jeff Goldblum (her bottom-line-driven network boss), with Harrison Ford (the cranky Dan Rather-esque anchor she hires to save the struggling Daybreak), with her co-producer at Daybreak (some character actor with an amazingly butt-like forehead), and above all with herself (she pulls out every adorable tic, neurotic hand gesture, and goofy facial aside here) are the real Roms in this Com.
Rachel McAdams and Harrison Ford have some good and often very funny rapport as metaphors for that Death of Journalism As We Know It And Rise of Infotainment argument everyone seems to be having with such seriousness as of late; but the facts are the movie’s at its funniest when they strap the weather guy to a roller coaster in a ratings bid and you get to watch his face go all jiggly and shit. Well, also there’s a part when Harrison Ford says “I woke her with my African rain stick” that is pretty hilarious. Diane Keaton is also in this movie, as Ford’s ditzy co-anchor at Daybreak. Unfortunately, she’s not given all that much to do except watch Rachel McAdams update characters she played with more aplomb and better trousers thirty years back. That said, we enjoyed Morning Glory tremendously. You should especially go see it if you miss Jeff Goldblum in bit parts that emphasize his magnificent tallness.
Poets on Film 