MORNING GLORY

Written by Aline Brosh McKenna

Directed by Roger Michell

Starring Rachel McAdams, Diane Keaton, Patrick Wilson and Harrison Ford

Mike Pomeroy: Half the people who watch your show lost the remote. The other half is just waiting for their nurse to turn them over.

In MORNING GLORY, the darling Rachel McAdams plays Becky. We all know Becky. We don’t necessarily know her in real life because I’m not convinced she actually exists anywhere other than in Hollywood films. Becky is married to her job as the executive producer of fourth place network morning show, “Daybreak”. As queen worker bee, she has no time for a life, let alone any time for love. We all know from the moment we meet her that she will inevitably find the balance in her life to live happily ever after, simultaneously providing a ripple effect of equilibrium to the people that surround her. In real life, Becky works around the clock, has meaningless sex if she’s lucky, and probably has to take a multitude of medications to keep up the pace necessary to maintain her “life”. That would be way too depressing for a romantic comedy though.

MORNING GLORY may not be grounded in anything other than a clichéd perspective on life, but director, Roger Michell (NOTTING HILL) still manages to pull enough genuine emotion from his cast to make the experience pretty pleasant and often pretty funny. McAdams is the center, a 28-year-old who must choose between her dreams and reality (28 is apparently the cut off age for chasing dreams). Her effortless charm propels her through countless difficult situations but you can tell she can feel the sting of failure catching up behind her and pushing her forward at the same time. Her morning show anchors are played by legends, Diane Keaton and Harrison Ford. Keaton is sadly underused but looks to be having a blast whenever on screen. As for Ford, it was refreshing to see him look like he’s trying for a change. As former trusted news anchor and current unemployed curmudgeon, Mike Pomeroy, Ford’s cold exterior and antagonizing delivery could not be better suited. By the time he has to show a little heart (c’mon, you knew he would!), it practically feels like it could change the world.

I would like someone to answer this question for me. When is Patrick Wilson going to just waltz into my empty elevator on one of the worst days of my life like he does for Becky on hers? I would settle for someone who isn’t Wilson but is as equally attractive. The truth is though that, while life doesn’t work this way necessarily, people do still find happiness by searching, hoping and never giving up. It’s just a lot easier for them to find it when there is a director behind a camera making sure that all the missing pieces are waiting to be found in plain sight.

THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE

Written by Bruce Joel Rubin
Directed by Robert Schwentke
Starring Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams and Ron Livingston


Time travel is certainly not an easy concept to buy. There are a number of theories that can make some plausible sense if explained and backed up thoroughly but it is, for now, a romanticized notion designed by the human mind to free ourselves from having to commit to anything. Oddly enough, over-romanticizing time travel does nothing to further its argument, at least not on screen. I’ve not read it but I feel THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE would have done time travel itself a little more justice as a novel than it does in Robert Schwentke’s film. On the page, one can use their imagination; in fact, one must. On screen, all the imagining is done for you and in this case, it is not a pretty picture.


Eric Bana plays Henry, the time traveler and Rachel McAdams plays Clare, the wife. When he is in his forties, Henry travels back in time and meets Clare as a young girl in a field. She grows up knowing all the while that her destiny is predetermined and with him. When Henry meets her in the present, he hasn’t gone back to the past yet so he must love without the certainty she has that it will all work out. While this is ripe with possibly new perspectives on love and what it would mean if we knew it was all worth it, it amounts to very little more than a lot of explanation and a bunch of sappy looks exchanged between Bana and McAdams.


As facile as this sounds, I wish I could travel back in time so that I could stop myself from seeing this movie. At least Bana is constantly naked throughout because he can’t bring his clothes with him when he travels. I guess that makes it not a total waste of time.

MARRIED LIFE

Written by Ira Sachs and Oren Moverman
Directed by Ira Sachs
Starring: Chris Cooper, Patricia Clarkson, Pierce Brosnan and Rachel McAdams


Richard Langley: I always felt marriage was like a mild illness, like the flu or chicken pox.

The biggest problem with MARRIED LIFE, the movie not the state of existence, is the tone set by its title. Before even setting foot in the theatre, your mind is filled with preconceived notions about the likelihoods the film will deliver. You cannot expect a film called MARRIED LIFE to show long term couples just as happy now as they were when they first met. In fact, in these cynical times, you might likely be disappointed if you didn’t see spouses abusing each other, scheming and plotting against the other or, if you want to be old fashioned, just plain cheating on each other. Perhaps to offset these expectations, writer/director, Ira Sachs, sets his story in the 1940’s, a supposedly simpler time when people were married and stayed that way despite their personal unhappiness. Even a setting as delicately composed as this one is not a good enough disguise for its contemporary sensibility. The film’s fate seems sealed as soon as the opening credits begin to roll. Similar in design and manner to television’s “Desperate Housewives”, a show that has built its reputation on couples scheming, they seem to announce Sach’s intention to give us exactly what we expect. Only when the final animated frame settles on a city skyline and you expect the real thing to take its place, Sachs reveals that it is in fact a reflection. With the lens pointing inward now, I wonder if I’ve spoken too soon.


Like the beginning of a marriage, for a while, it is good. The strings of the score swell and sweep you up into the sentiment like a warm wind taking you for a dance in the sky overlooking a quiet family-friendly suburban street. This particular street is home to Harry and Pat Allen (Chris Cooper and Patricia Clarkson). The two have been married for what might as well be forever and they still cherish and respect each other but whether they still love each other is a question that looms over their lives like a heavy cloud. Harry believes that love is defined by the desire to give constantly to the other person. Pat believes that love is sex. Despite their definitions being categorically on different pages, they are a solid, functional couple. However, Harry has found another woman, Kay (Rachel McAdams in a refreshing return that is more tender and vulnerable than past performances) for whom continuously being doted on is the perfect compliment to her lonely life. I suppose it doesn’t hurt that she is younger and beautiful but Harry conveniently avoids seeing this as the motivating factor for his affection.


And so Harry finds himself in quite the pickle. He doesn’t want to burden his wife with the embarrassment of a divorce but yet he cannot deny that he is no longer in love with her. Harry is a sensible businessman who lives his life with order and reason and is still able to embrace his more romantic sensibility, wanting his life to embody the love he feels. He racks his brain to come up with the tidiest, most logical solution to his dilemma and somehow, the best plan he can come up with is to kill his wife. He rationalizes that this will cause the least amount of pain to all involved, including his children. Is it me or is this the least rational course of action? Essentially, this becomes MARRIED LIFE’s main storyline and as it is ridiculous in concept, it also serves to undermine the intelligence of what was otherwise a fairly engaging film. Even Sachs seems unsure of this whole direction as he throws in a couple of painfully obvious scenes about how death can take away misery rather than add to it. If Sachs isn’t buying it, I’m not sure how he thought anyone else would.


Despite its shortcomings, MARRIED LIFE does plant a few seeds of wisdom in its perfectly tended garden. The banalities of spending every day of your life with the same person are accepted by most of the characters as a perfectly normal piece of the pie. With decades past between their time and ours, have we really changed all that much? There are so many things happening and left unsaid in any marriage with both partners none the wiser. Subsequently, we have fine-tuned an uncanny ability to exist in a state of comfortable misery. We may look elsewhere for distraction but so many never walk away from what they know isn’t working. Applying that same logic makes sitting through MARRIED LIFE entirely acceptable while you wonder what’s playing next door.