Morning Glory vs Working Girl

In Morning Glory, Rachel McAdams plays Becky, a plucky go-getter with a lot of pluck and go-get who has just been fired from her job producing the local news. Everyone there loves her so much that her assistant makes up special t-shirts when it looks like Becky might be getting a promotion. But there are cut-backs, and Becky is cut back. Not for long. Soon, she’s snagged an even better job, producing a morning show called Daybreak, which isn’t the news, exactly. Daybreak is not as chatty and fun as Regis & Kelly, not as news-reputable as Today, and much less successful than both. Daybreak is co-hosted by the fantastically named Colleen Peck (Diane Keaton), and a rotating list of male anchors who can’t cut it. The most recent is a pervert played by Ty Burrell. Becky’s first order of business is to fire him, putting her immediately in the enviable position of being loved by her new coworkers. Less enviable: Colleen, frustrated at the quality of life in general at the studio (she gets no respect, the place is falling apart, her co-anchors are stupid, etc) predicts Becky’s imminent failure; the same attitude is held by her boss, played by Jeff Goldblum (who is bored out of his mind); and Becky, in what she feels is a burst of inspiration, decides to pursue Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford) to fill the vacant seat on Daybreak, despite the fact that he’s surly and uninterested. Mike is a Serious Newsman, and is bitter about the younger, sillier face of morning television. There’s a glitch in his early-retirement contract, however, and soon enough, Mike finds himself forced behind the desk of Daybreak. 

Mike wants to do breaking news investigations on Daybreak, Colleen wants to do fun, charming fluff, and Jeff Goldblum wants the ratings to rise or he’s canceling the show.Daybreak’s been on forever, and they just hired a new anchor and producer, but they get a six-month deadline to keep it on the air. I guess that’s how TV works? Maybe? It’s not like they sunk Conan dollars into Daybreak. Diane Keaton is wonderful in pretty much anything she tries, wonderful enough that she made me think I’d probably like watching a show hosted by Colleen Peck. But I can tell you with zero reservations, I didn’t give a shit if her show got cancelled or not. It looks like a thousand other shows, all of them basically watchable but not memorable. So the tension over whether or not Becky can get the ratings up, or appease Mike with juicy stories long enough to keep him coming to work, is non-existent. And of course, there’s a subplot involving Becky’s new boyfriend, played by professional movie boyfriend Patrick Wilson. In some scenes, it appears as if Wilson works in Becky’s building. And other times, he’s maybe down the block? And they run into each other in diners and bars in the neighborhood. Later in the movie, he sidles up behind her at her job. Do they work together? He used to work with Mike, but doesn’t anymore. And Mike works with Becky, but didn’t until very recently. Morning Glory is full of little holes like this, which normally I would excuse in a Thanksgiving night romantic comedy. But Morning Glory has like five musical montages, and entire slapstick bits built around Becky’s bangs being in her eyes. Can’t we take a thirty-second span of dialogue and tell me where Patrick Wilson works? If he doesn’t work with Becky, he’s not allowed to just sneak into her studio, right? 

Morning Glory is more confusing than Inception, and it’s a problem. It was directed by Roger Michell, who made Notting Hill, which is one of the smarter romantic comedies I’ve seen. That movie is more evenly paced, and has much more organic dialogue and situations. Morning Glory is a lot like the morning TV it portrays. If you miss it, another will be along tomorrow. If you watch it, you’ll probably have fun. Maybe Neal Patrick Harris will do a magic trick. Maybe Kyra Sedgwick will be on and tell some funny Kevin Bacon so-and-so. Like those shows, the performances keep Morning Glory floating. Keaton’s the best, in a restricted role. She’s mostly stuck behind the desk or in her dressing room. Everything else she did is edited into the montages (If you don’t like Joss Stone, Morning Glory is gonna be torture). And Harrison Ford puts just enough comic spin into his readings that he’s not terrifying. It’s like if Gran Torino was a sitcom. McAdams is in nearly every scene, and does her damndest to keep everything going. She’s quick and cute, and like Becky, saves the day at the end, through pure drive and spunk and positive attitude and believing in herself and her bangs and those ratings are gonna climb and you’ll be sorry you ever doubted etc etc.

There are a dozen workplace comedies you could pair with Morning Glory. You could keep the Diane Keaton love going with Baby Boom. Or continue with movies set in newsrooms, like Broadcast News, which leaves Morning Glory in its dust, or Network, which leaves everything in its dust, and is the subject of my forthcoming one-man show. 

Morning Glory is frothier than those films, obviously. I think a nice match for it is one of those farcical corporate ladder movies of the 1980s, like The Secret of My Success, or Working Girl.

Like Morning Glory, Working Girl, directed by Mike Nichols, deals with an ambitious heroine on the small side of big business, and even pairs her with Harrison Ford. Two distinct differences make it worth your while to watch it one more time. First, the screenplay for Working Girl is a smartass gem, probably one of the best of its decade. It would work in any setting, in any year, with nearly any group of actors, although it does pretty good in that department. I know a lot of you are gonna hesitate to include Melanie Griffith on a list of great actors in essential movies, but it works here. 

And secondly, the theme of Working Girl is refreshingly that it’s awesome to kick ass at your job. Almost every workplace comedy made since has had a female character who is so attached to her job she can’t make personal connections. Until she learns to relax and live a little, she won’t be happy. In Morning Glory, Becky’s boyfriend won’t make out with her unless she puts her Blackberry in the freezer. But in Working Girl, when Griffith’s Tess catches her boyfriend (Alec Baldwin) cheating, she just dumps him and works even harder.

The plot of Working Girl is more complicated than Morning Glory by at least half, but it’s easier to follow. Tess works in the secretarial pool with Cyn (Joan Cusack), but gets moved to the office of Katherine, the female Gordon Gekko, played by Sigourney Weaver. Katherine is sophisticated, smart, well-dressed, and hardly ever raises her voice. She’s the villain of the piece (Morning Glory doesn’t have one), but she’s uncompromising, logical, and played by Weaver with wit and control (even her blinks seem timed to the script), so don’t feel bad if she’s the one you root for. Katherine pretends to be a mentor for Tess, and then takes her ideas. When Katherine breaks her leg on vacation, Tess has to run the office, and does so…as Katherine. She starts dating Ford (light as air. As much as I love his action movies, he seems so relieved not to have to jump over anything.), who had previously dated Katherine. 

Working Girl goes on from there as a mistaken identity farce, with digs at corporate life, worship of money, and the enormous class gaps that exist between floors. Yeah, Working Girl is so Eighties it hurts. Computers were huge and glowed green. Secretaries changed into Reeboks after work. But go with it. Sometimes greed is good. 

Morning Glory: C+

Working Girl: B+