Morning Glory (spoilers)

So. There are, like, eight TV shows that I watch on a regular basis, and I typically go to at least two movies per month; I would happily go to one every week, but there isn't always something I want to see, and sometimes I'm too busy. Yet, since I started this blog back in May, I've posted a grand total of three times (well, four, counting this one). "Why?," you may ask. Well-- and I think this is also representative of the blogs I used to post on Facebook and have since deleted-- I tend to only feel compelled to write about the stuff I watch when it seriously bothers me (as in the case of Sex and the City 2); it pleasantly surprises me (like Easy A); or it blows my mind to the point where I just have to talk about it (like with the Gossip Girl finale). As those of you who used to read my Facebook blog know, this used to happen much more often when I used to watch The Hills, which pretty much always irritated me (to the point where I stopped watching when Lauren Conrad left). It also happened more often when Gossip Girl used to be just awesome. (Remember when Nate Archibald was literally a gigolo for a little while? Remember when Serena briefly became evil and took over the school from Blair and turned everyone against Dan? Remember when Bart Bass died unexpectedly and Chuck called Lily a whore and she slapped him in the face? Remember how mind-blowingly awesome all of that was? Man, Season 2 was great.)

Anyway. So now I'm blogging about Morning Glory, which falls into the "pleasantly surprised me" category. Specific thoughts:

I like Rachel McAdams, and have for quite some time, though looking over a list of her movies, I realize that she's never been in anything I've liked all that much. Mean Girls was pretty good. The Notebook was okay. I liked Red Eye quite a bit, actually, though again, it was a "pleasantly surprised" type thing; I don't normally like movies "like that," and it exceeded my expectations. But that, I think, illustrates that she's good: she doesn't often have great stuff to work with, but she always (or at least usually) brings things up a notch. Reese Witherspoon got a lot of the same types of reviews before Walk the Line: that she was really great in a lot of movies that were "just okay," and maybe wouldn't have even been "just okay" if a different actor was in them. This is partly what is happening here, I think; Rachel McAdams's character, Becky Fuller, is always frazzled, and tends to ramble, and gives these speeches that cause other characters to ask, "Are you going to sing now?," but...you can't help but like her. The other characters in the movie find themselves liking her even though they really don't want to, and as an audience member, you can't help but like her, too. She's got charisma, I guess is what I'm saying.

The story also came through for me. I was afraid for awhile it would take a disappointing turn in the vein of some movies that I wanted to really like but then just couldn't (I'm talking specifically about View from the Top and The Devil Wears Prada, which had a lot going from them but wound up sending some troubling messages about women who prioritize their careers). Anyway, the basic plot of Morning Glory is this: A career girl in her late twenties who has never quite found time for a relationship suffers a career setback that causes some (including her own mother) to tell her she should just give up. She doesn't, and is given another chance; she tries her heart out, but at first, people don't get what she's doing. At one point, it looks like she's actually made things worse, for herself and for a lot of other people, and even more people tell her she should just give up. She still doesn't, and in fact throws herself even more wholeheartedly (some might even say desperately) in pursuit of her goals. In the end, she succeeds, wins over everyone who ever doubted her and, as a bonus, finds a guy who accepts her for who she is and doesn't expect her to change (he does, occasionally, want her to put her phone away and pay attention to him, but that's not really asking too much, at least in my opinion). That, in and of itself, is a pretty great movie plot.

It is made even better because it is all *so* hard won. In the previous paragraph, I boiled this movie down to its basic elements, as if this could be about any career girl in any profession, and I guess it could be. But this story is very specifically about Becky Fuller working as a producer for a morning news and talk show, and in the context of this movie, this means everything. First off, as touched on earlier, Becky is a very specific, well-drawn character: ambitious, driven, hard-working, always busy, often a bit frazzled. And when she really *gets things done*, it is fairly impressive to watch.

The fact that much of this is taking place on the set of a second-rate version of the Today show, though, adds a whole other level to it. Shows like this, as the movie highlights, are sometimes silly to watch and degrading for the people involved: the hosts have to literally kiss frogs, ride rollercoasters, and cook onscreen, among other things. Often, the more ridiculous the hosts look, the more the viewers like it. The interesting thing is that it is not Becky's job to make this into a more "serious" news show or to teach the crew that there is something wrong with all of this; instead, a big part of her battle is convincing one host, grizzled news veteran Mike Pomeroy (played by Harrison Ford), that this is not beneath him, and that by insisting that it is beneath him, he is jeopardizing the entire show and the futures of a whole lot of people. When he finally makes a frittata onscreen, this is depicted not as him "selling out," but as him finally being a team player and doing something for Becky, who is working so darn hard with so little help and encouragement.

That's the thing, and I cannot stress this enough: she is trying so hard. She is working such long hours, with such difficult people, and sometimes she must do (and convince others to do) ridiculous things to make it all work, and absolutely no one wants or expects her to succeed. When she finally does succeed, it feels like she has earned it in a way that you don't often see in movies. You are genuinely happy for and impressed with her.

The fact that she also has a romance with a journalist named Adam Bennett (played by Patrick Wilson) in the midst of all this has been called unnecessary by some critics. I'm pretty sure I disagree with that, even though there is an awful lot going on in this movie even without that (I haven't even mentioned Diane Keaton's character and have only made passing reference to Harrison Ford's, even though both actors are very good and both characters are important to the movie. I've realized just while writing this just how much Rachel McAdams's movie this really is). The fact that Becky doesn't even really understand what is happening when Adam asks her out really illustrates just how much her work has consumed her, and the fact that at one point she actually breaks up with him because she just plain doesn't have time for him and doesn't want to feel guilty for focusing on her work, is important. Mike Pomeroy warns her at one point that she's going to wind up with "nothing" if she keeps devoting herself so singlemindedly to her career, and she eventually realizes that she does really want Adam in her life; however, her revelation is that she needs to learn to balance work and career, not that she needs to completely give one or the other up or lower her ambitions. This sounds like just good sense, but is something we see in painfully few movies. In a lot of movies, the "happy ending" would have been Becky realizing that the job just isn't all that important, after all, and after how hard we see her work, that would have been really disappointing. It's just a nice bonus that she manages to find someone who likes her for who she is along the way.

So, again, this movie pleasantly surprised me, though I've realized while writing it that it was better than just "better than I thought it was going to be." It was a genuinely good movie.