Morning Glory | Film review - Rachel McAdams peps up romantic comedy

Morning Glory Rachel McAdams Diane Keaton Harrison Ford

Becky Fuller, the perky heroine played by Rachel McAdams in romantic media comedy Morning Glory, is so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed she probably showers with caffeinated soap.

Permanently peppy, she’s just the person to turn around the fortunes of failing morning TV news show Daybreak, currently last in the ratings. Becky is buzzing with ideas, but her great wheeze of getting veteran reporter Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford) to co-host the show looks doomed to failure.

The gruff Pomeroy is a Pulitzer Prize-winning hard-news specialist who hates the trifling stories served up by Daybreak and has no time for his lightweight co-anchor (Diane Keaton). Disaster looms unless Becky can pull off a miracle.

Morning Glory is as fluffy and insubstantial as the TV show it revolves around. But screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna (who adapted The Devil Wears Prada for the screen) supplies some good gags and director Roger Michell (Notting Hill) gets great comic performances from his cast, including some delightfully deadpan sparring between Ford and Keaton and a true star turn from McAdams. Her character’s romance with Patrick Wilson’s blandly handsome evening news producer is rather insipid, but even this dampener can’t quench McAdams’s spark.

Certificate 12. Runtime 103 mins. Director Roger Michell

Morning Glory shows on Film4 at 6.55pm and is available on DVD, courtesy of Paramount Home Entertainment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2jYZbGT_-8

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A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.