Morning Glory

 I am not a morning person. I would prefer to wake up at noon every single day of my life; and when I do wake up early, the sickeningly bouncy morning news shows tend to make me lose my breakfast. Morning Glory (What’s the story?) may have convinced me to give them another try, but only if Harrison Ford is one of the anchors.
  
Morning Glory is based around the life of Becky Fuller (Rachel McAdams). A very determined, hard-working woman with so many bangs it’s as if her head is a willow tree. After being recently let go from a New Jersey morning show for not being qualified enough, she applies around looking for a job. She gets a call from the worst morning news show known to man, Daybreak. Becky takes the job because, lets face it, she’s pretty desperate. After flailing around like a goldfish with no water, Becky makes a desperate ploy to save the show: use a contract loophole to force Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford), one of the worlds greatest reporters, to anchor the failing Daybreak. Becky soon discovers that Pomeroy is about as nice as a pack of rabid wolverines and refuses to say words like “fluffy” because it is beneath him. With ratings taking a dive, Becky has to employ some show saving techniques to keep her job and the show afloat.  

Morning Glory’s strength is in its actors. Rachel McAdams is usually a strong force within her films but her performance is fairly weak compared to others. Jeff Goldblum and Diane Keaton playing a senior executive and co-anchor respectively are very funny and many of the supporting cast throw their weigh around as well. But the real heavy hitter is Harrison Ford. His first movie since 2010’s flop Extraordinary Measures and he hasn’t lost a bit of his pizzazz. Responding gruffly to coworkers and referring to Becky’s love interest as “Senor Dip$#%!” had me immensely enjoying myself. I wish he and Sean Connery would do a movie together. It would be the epitome of manliness.  

Where Morning Glory fails, it fails pretty hard. There are some clichés within the film that make it just a shameless copy and paste exercise, but the really annoying bits involve Becky and her new man Adam. Their budding love (based entirely off his want of any girl he can see, and her want of being too busy for any sane guy) drags the movie down at every point. It is incredibly forced and a pain to sit through.   

I wouldn’t get up bright and early to see this morning news show, but I might Tivo some reruns.

2 and a half out of 4 stars

-Christopher O'Connell