Morning Glory

Hello all. I have no idea why, but after seeing Morning Glory today, I decided to blog about it. There are so many things that go right with this movie; unfortunately, there are also a few that go wrong. First of all, Rachel McAdams is nothing less than sensational as Becky Fuller (what a name, eh?). This is McAdam's first time really headlining a movie on her own and truly getting it right (although I did thoroughly enjoy Red Eye). She is funny, sincere, quirky, cute and you can't take your eyes off her. It's hard to imagine that she hasn't made it to that next level yet in her career. She's done romantic drama (The Notebook), thriller (Red Eye), Sci-Fi (The Time Traveler's Wife), adult drama (Married Life), romantic comedy (Wedding Crashers), teen comedy (Mean Girls) and even action (Sherlock Holmes), all to mostly good reviews. She has pretty much done it all in terms of film genre, but she has never made the growth she needs to make it to full-fledged movie star (a la Julia Roberts or Angelina Jolie). Can she do it? Perhaps. She needs to find her niche, and stick to it. Julia and Angie pretty much found it, although they might diversity every now and then. She can perhaps take a pointer from Natalie Portman, who is finally getting the best reviews of her career as a haunted ballerina in Black Swan. With the right direction, we can hopefully expect greater things from McAdams in the future. She is still young, and has enough time to show us the real thing.

In terms of other actors, Diane Keaton was severely underused, though I cant really blame them considering what her film choice has been like lately (Perhaps a starring-role in the HBO comedy, TILDA?). Patrick Wilson is, well, Patrick Wilson. He is there to look pretty, and he has always played that role well, for the most part. He is another actor whom I am not exactly why he hasn't taken that next step in his career either. Not quite sure where he goes from here. He has to eventually get tired of playing these roles. At least that is the impression I get from interviews and other articles that I have read about him. Harrison Ford is funny and he plays off well with both Keaton and McAdams. I would love for him to go back to typical Harrison Ford fare though, which he seems to be doing with COWBOYS AND ALIENS, coming out in July 2011. Some nice work from Jeff Goldblum, who has been having a career resurgence of sorts, with both this and The Switch, which I haven't seen yet, but have heard great things about his role in that.

Overall, the film is less about a morning show (like Today and GMA, but less successful) than it is about a woman's career ambitions and struggles, with everything in between. As someone who has worked in production on a television show before, it is a great "behind the scenes"film in how it represents what its like to work on a show like that. Morning Glory succeeded in what it set out to do, and is entertaining, cute and enjoyable to the fullest extent.