Late Night. (12A)
Directed by Nisha Ganatra.
Starring Emma Thompson, Mindy Kaling, Hugh Dancy, Denis O'Hare, Ike Barinholtz, Amy Ryan and John Lithgow. 102 mins.
The world of the American late-night chat show – those nightly ritualised glee hours of co-ordinated whooping, clapping, quipping, smugging, advertising and almost no real chat – are an integral part of American post-war culture, a tradition born in the fifties and passed down from Carson to Letterman to Leno to Kimmel. And throughout that time British people have looked at them and said “I don't get it. What are they clapping about? why are they so hysterical?” No matter how hard we try to understand, how many times we try to imitate, they remain a mystery. So speaking from a position of total ignorance, (and even allowing for the Yanks horrendous taste in limeys that saw then anoint Piers Morgan as an adjudicator of their talent) I just can't believe that Emma Thompson could have been the host of the Tonight Show for 28 years.
The film though chooses to exist in a world where Thompson, or her character Katherine Thornbury, has been just that but is facing the chop because of falling ratings and getting flack because her writing staff is entirely white and male. The world of US late-night TV is often criticised for being exclusively male and exclusively white, (apparently, Arsenio Hall didn't count) but even if it wasn't I can't see Thompson being the kind of figure that would become a late-night icon. From what we see of Thornbury here she isn't empathetic or funny enough. Thompson has been given a severe hairstyle and is her at her most haughty and disdainful and you just can't see figure generating the quantity of whoops necessary to make it for that long? (Still, if charmless wankchops James Corden can make a go of it who knows?)
The film is a BAME saviour narrative in which a totally inexperienced, right place right time diversity appointment, Molly (Kaling), gets a job on the writing team. Once there she has a hard time proving herself with the other writers; probably because she got the job without any relevant skills, but gradually starts to turn it around. .
Kaling also wrote the script and its chief merit is that it isn't hectoring. As a female boss Thornbury is a real cow, too arrogant to even learn the writers' names she just gives them numbers and she fires people on a whim. Molly only gets the job because she is Asian and female, and the script is rooted in Kaling's own experience of being a diversity pick. So there is a little grey, it isn't just banging the drum, but neither is it particularly credible or insightful.
Thompson is fine as Emily Thornbury, a driven overachiever, sacrificing everything for success. Kaling's script is tough on her, but totally soft on her own character Molly who is written as the endearing klutz that people can't help but end up falling in love with. We are introduced to her in classic Sex and The City style with a shot of her walking down a crowded New York street. She's gonna make it there, because she can make it anywhere even though Molly appears to be a comedy writer who doesn't have many funny ideas or lines.
The film has a few funny moments but ultimately it is just too cosy and safe to have any real impact. They could've got in a bunch of jaded, cynical white men to make something this bland.
Directed by Nisha Ganatra.
Starring Emma Thompson, Mindy Kaling, Hugh Dancy, Denis O'Hare, Ike Barinholtz, Amy Ryan and John Lithgow. 102 mins.
The world of the American late-night chat show – those nightly ritualised glee hours of co-ordinated whooping, clapping, quipping, smugging, advertising and almost no real chat – are an integral part of American post-war culture, a tradition born in the fifties and passed down from Carson to Letterman to Leno to Kimmel. And throughout that time British people have looked at them and said “I don't get it. What are they clapping about? why are they so hysterical?” No matter how hard we try to understand, how many times we try to imitate, they remain a mystery. So speaking from a position of total ignorance, (and even allowing for the Yanks horrendous taste in limeys that saw then anoint Piers Morgan as an adjudicator of their talent) I just can't believe that Emma Thompson could have been the host of the Tonight Show for 28 years.
The film though chooses to exist in a world where Thompson, or her character Katherine Thornbury, has been just that but is facing the chop because of falling ratings and getting flack because her writing staff is entirely white and male. The world of US late-night TV is often criticised for being exclusively male and exclusively white, (apparently, Arsenio Hall didn't count) but even if it wasn't I can't see Thompson being the kind of figure that would become a late-night icon. From what we see of Thornbury here she isn't empathetic or funny enough. Thompson has been given a severe hairstyle and is her at her most haughty and disdainful and you just can't see figure generating the quantity of whoops necessary to make it for that long? (Still, if charmless wankchops James Corden can make a go of it who knows?)
The film is a BAME saviour narrative in which a totally inexperienced, right place right time diversity appointment, Molly (Kaling), gets a job on the writing team. Once there she has a hard time proving herself with the other writers; probably because she got the job without any relevant skills, but gradually starts to turn it around. .
Kaling also wrote the script and its chief merit is that it isn't hectoring. As a female boss Thornbury is a real cow, too arrogant to even learn the writers' names she just gives them numbers and she fires people on a whim. Molly only gets the job because she is Asian and female, and the script is rooted in Kaling's own experience of being a diversity pick. So there is a little grey, it isn't just banging the drum, but neither is it particularly credible or insightful.
Thompson is fine as Emily Thornbury, a driven overachiever, sacrificing everything for success. Kaling's script is tough on her, but totally soft on her own character Molly who is written as the endearing klutz that people can't help but end up falling in love with. We are introduced to her in classic Sex and The City style with a shot of her walking down a crowded New York street. She's gonna make it there, because she can make it anywhere even though Molly appears to be a comedy writer who doesn't have many funny ideas or lines.
The film has a few funny moments but ultimately it is just too cosy and safe to have any real impact. They could've got in a bunch of jaded, cynical white men to make something this bland.
