REVIEW: Rachel McAdams Keeps Morning Glory Alive and Awake

The advertising campaign for Roger Michell's Morning Glory makes it look like every dismal, overly calculated Nancy Meyers comedy you never wanted to see: A perky young go-getter is fired from her job as a low-level producer on a New Jersey morning-TV show, but bounces back by landing a job on a bigger show in New York, whose ratings she rescues from the toilet even as she juggles the high-maintenance egos of the on-air talent. Oh, and even though she works too hard to spend much time on her love life, she still manages to find a nice boyfriend. If you're in your right mind, why would you go anywhere near a movie like that?

But when that movie has a star like Rachel McAdams, all bets are off: Largely thanks to her, Morning Glory is breezy and enjoyable, and though its story is a bit unfocused -- why give a heroine just one major crisis when you can pack in four or five? -- Michell at least allows his actors to relax and have fun with the material. McAdams is his secret weapon: If she can wheedle some charm out of a guy whose face looks as if it's been carved from a potato, she can do pretty much anything.

The movie's Mr. Potato Head is Harrison Ford as Mike Pomeroy, a respected old-school TV newsman who's been hung out to dry by his network for focusing on stories that are deemed too boring. McAdam's Becky lures him to her show -- a sub-Today morning program called Daybreak -- as co-anchor, even though he expresses nothing but disdain for the program's fluffy, feel-good stories about celebrity-fave recipes, mini-skirts for every figure, and the like. He also wants nothing to do with his established co-anchor, Diane Keaton's Colleen Peck. A former beauty queen and unrepentant diva, Colleen doesn't much care for him, either, but she at least tries to hide her contempt for him while the two are on-camera: On his first show, she welcomes him semi-warmly as a cake with the Daybreak logo is wheeled out before him, and he can barely even grunt his thanks. Instead, he glares at her as if she were an aged bimbette who'd crawled from the pages of a Soft Surroundings catalog.

Bright, capable Becky can't do much to improve their chemistry, but she does manage to boost the show's ratings (partly by sending one hapless correspondent, played by Matt Malloy, out to try a new amusement-park rollercoaster, live -- his response to this thrill ride is one long drawn-out swear word that gets a zillion hits on YouTube). Meanwhile, she embarks on a romance with Mike's former assistant, Adam (Patrick Wilson), who tries to warn her from the start that Mike is "the third worst person in the world" (never mind who the other two are). And in the end, it turns out that viewers at home love Mike and Colleen's high-profile hatefest: Their open hostility, along with a few other factors, saves Becky's show from cancellation, which impresses her perpetually nonplussed boss (played by the marvelously dry Jeff Goldblum).

There's too much going on in Morning Glory: Maybe screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna (whose credits include The Devil Wears Prada, as well as the beyond-horrific 127 Dresses) believes that lots of extra clutter makes for a livelier picture. But Michell (Notting Hill, Venus) orchestrates the action in a way that keeps it from being exhausting, focusing instead on the interplay between the actors. Keaton and Ford, in particular, make an inspired team: Keaton's Colleen, in her crisp, turned-up collars, has a glow of icy snobbery about her; Ford's Mike is just a rubbery old grouch who refuses to come out to play, at least until the movie's crucial moment.

But McAdams is the ticker that keeps Morning Glory awake and alive. She's the kind of actress who makes everyone around her seem brighter, more engaged, more vital -- she even animates that piece of deadwood, Patrick Wilson. His character, a Yale graduate and former rowing champion, is supposed to be a dreamboat, but he just comes off as a dullard -- until Becky tumbles, almost literally, into his office after a botched date and breathlessly explains how much she really likes him. He looks at her, half delighted and half befuddled, and, as if he's finally gotten with the program, begins sparring with her -- it's as if she's given him a Dr. Frankenstein jolt of electricity.

McAdams is a great screwball actress working, sadly, in an age when there are no great screwball roles. But Morning Glory at least has some pizzazz, and suggests an awareness of the way serious journalism has one foot in the grave: Becky, politely but firmly, has to inform the show's health and beauty person (played, with artful ditziness, by J. Elaine Marcos) that "rejuvenization" is not a word. She also challenges Mike on his contention that hard news is all that matters, informing him that the battle between entertainment and serious journalism has been going on for a long time, and that he's on the losing side. I don't think the movie is condoning that view -- if anything, it's acknowledging a pretty harsh reality -- though in the context of a blithe entertainment like this one, Becky's argument does seem a little flip.

Still, it's her job to cajole this old codger out of his perpetual bad mood, and damned if she doesn't pull it off. McAdams is radiant here: Her Becky is brainy, capable, just a little daffy, like a cross between Carole Lombard and Rosalind Russell. McAdams deserves better writing, sure. On the other hand, an actress who can elevate whatever material she's given is a Godsend these days. She's a rejuvenating presence in an industry that too often settles for rejuvenization.