I watched the movie Morning Glory yesterday and was definitely disappointed. I had a little bit more hope than I usual would have for a light romantic comedy about a 'working girl' (which hasn't worked since Working Girl), because of the promising cast. Diane Keaton, Harrison Ford and Rachel McAdams all performed amicably, although Ford's growling that was supposed to imply how serious he took the news got old quickly. The writing was definitely the problem. Before I realized the movie was written by the same person who did The Devil Wears Prada, I discovered both movies had the same overall problem: the spend too much time on different aspects of the storyline so you don't become as invested as you need to be in the main plot.

These types of movies always insist on having a love interest have plenty of screen-time when that relationship really has nothing to do with the point of the movie. I don't know if it's because the star is female or the fact that the audience will most likely be female, but they really need to stop shoving a love story where it doesn't belong. The Devil Wears Prada is about her relationship with her boss and the boyfriend just seems like an extra bit they put in at the end to make sure to get the romance crowd. The same thing happens in Morning Glory. They spend a lot of time showing you her new boyfriend that she met at her new job, but you don't actually get to see the relationship develop. Their first "date" is her running out of a bar quickly when scared off by another woman. and the second "date" is the two characters about to have sex, but then she runs off to get a story for her show. Since you don't see the relationship develop, you don't feel the conflict when she talks about how her boyfriends can never understand her dedication to her work. The audience ends up siding with her because the whole movie is from her perspective and you want her to save the show and her job at all costs.

Now comes the real problem. The previews made it seem like the movie was going to be about her relationship with Harrison Ford's character. An old veteran vs. young blood kind of deal which would have been interesting BUT they don't spend nearly enough time on their relationship for the audience to understand the tug of war that is going on. Just because she keeps shooting down his stories and he keeps angrily reminiscing about the important jobs he did in the old days doesn't mean they are actually connecting on any level. And that's what movies like this require: connection of characters to each other and to the audience. The audience is too distracted with her love interest to really become invested in Harrison Ford's 'redemption' until his antics endanger the show. There are only two instances where you feel like their characters actually care about each other, his breaking news story and his last ditch effort to keep McAdams in the picture with eggs. A movie needs more than 2 scenes to show connection between characters unless it's Sleepless in Seattle but they can't all be apart of Nora Ephron's genius.

The third story line that they barely spent any time on at all was her relationship with the show's cast and crew. At the end she implies that she can't leave the show because she has loyalty to her new family. The camera pans over all the people she works with and you realize you have no idea who any of them are except for Keaton and Ford. Because we are never shown her budding friendships and the shared struggle they all went through to save the show, the audience doesn't really understand why she would give up the (much better) job opportunity on another network. Morning Glory should have concentrated on McAdams' relationship with Ford or with the show itself. It would have made for a much more entertaining movie. (2/5)