Morning Glory review

A sharply written, pertinent romcom about a TV network caught in the crossfire between news and entertainment, abundant in wit and filled with excellent performances.

Yes, Broadcast News really did have it all. But that was then, this is now, and what we get in its stead is Morning Glory, a forgettable trifle about a struggling breakfast TV show.

Glory’s holly hunter is Becky fuller (Rachel McAdams), a local news producer hired to inject some oomph into national morning show Daybreak (yes, like the one on ITV).

This she does by arranging for veteran anchorman Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford) to join diva-like hostess Colleen Peck (Diane Keaton) behind the desk in the hope his old-school gravitas and formidable rep will entice viewers back to under-fire network IBS (yes, like the bowel complaint).

Trouble is, Mike has no time for the show’s diet of cooking, gossip and photogenic pets. It’s up to Becky, then, to win him round in what ends up being a re-run of the difficult boss/ put-upon underling relationship from The Devil Wears Prada – a film scripted by Glory writer Aline Brosh McKenna.

Had James L. Brooks been in charge, you can imagine ford setting McAdams back on the true path of hard-news journalism. The way Roger Michell tells it, it’s him who needs to change his ways, the movie as a whole being some bizarre apologia for televised tat.

That might be acceptable if Glory had more than a smattering of amusing situations and one-liners.

Because it doesn’t, you may end up taking against McAdams’ aggressively perky heroine, whose mission appears to be pandering to her undemanding audience’s low expectations.