Morning Glory

Keep a bottle of Xanax handy—surviving the seizure-inducing first 10 minutes of Morning Glory is worth it. Bringing the same unforgettable touch he had with Notting Hill, director Roger Michell crafts Morning Glory to be everything an intelligent romantic comedy should be: charming, sensitive and refreshing.

Becky (Rachel McAdams) is laid off from a New Jersey news station and accepts her lone job offer: producing a fourth-place morning show, Daybreak, where the only stable host, Colleen Peck (Diane Keaton), struggles to gain viewership. Becky’s business sense brings nine-time Peabody Award winner, and simultaneous third-worst person in the world, Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford) to co-host the show. Unfortunately, Pomeroy refuses to indulge in “fluffy” news stories, leading Becky on a journey to save the show from cancellation and explore whether a celebrated career is all she wants in life.

The true triumph of the film was Marcia deBonis and Ellen Lewis’ casting. Ford is simultaneously grave and fantastic, evoking a stubborn and aging Dan Rather with a vast collection of colorful suit socks. Keaton is seductive in a sumo-wrestler suit as she battles a 400-pound Japanese man as a publicity stunt. Daybreak’s meteorologist (Matt Malloy) adds more than a few laugh-out-loud moments when he abdicates his post and takes to roller-coaster riding and skydiving with a handheld camera. Becky’s relationship with fellow producer Adam Bennett (Patrick Wilson) is unfortunately a subplot. An actor of Wilson’s caliber feels underutilized in the role, but it is reconcilable as Morning Glory is the story of Becky’s development—and not the story of their romance.

A rock-solid soundtrack, featuring Hoagy Carmichael, Joss Stone, the Weepies and Newton Faulkner, covers up cinematographer Alwin Kuchler’s inattentiveness. Too many scenes were fuzzy from poor focus, and the overuse of genre-specific diagonal pans and rapid pull-focuses was irritating. Kuchler’s mistakes, however, are a small footnote to McAdams’ electric performance.

McAdams elevates Morning Glory’s story and characters above the slew of recent forgettable romantic comedies, creating a coincidental resolution that audiences are more than happy to accept.