BEFORE: I made this schedule a month or so ago, and I'm reluctant to change it (tweak it, sure, but not tear it all down and rebuild it) so that puts the Amazon Prime movie "Late Night" here and now, during a time when all the late night talk shows are closed down. Some of them tried broadcasting last week without an audience, but that just doesn't work - the sports stars kind of feel the same way about playing games with no crowd in the stadium. I'm actually still surprised about the sports cancellations, because they could still end up with something they could broadcast on TV, and their multi-million dollar endorsement deals could still be valid, plus ratings would be higher than ever, with everyone stuck at home and unable to attend the games in person. But I think a couple team employees or arena staffers tested positive for Covid, so the safest course of action is just to cancel everything.
So without my daily (OK, I watch the shows on the weekends) doses of Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Conan O'Brien and Trevor Noah, where am I going to get my entertainment from? I've had to watch the NEWS channels this week to stay informed, and I really prefer to have that comedy filter in place. Some stuff is just too real otherwise. Well, all the more reason to watch this film, I guess - if I can't have real late-night programming, I'll have to settle for a fictitious late-night show.
Emma Thompson carries over again from "Johnny English Strikes Again")
THE PLOT: A late-night talk show host suspects that she may soon lose her long-running show.
AFTER: Well, I already watched one film this year about a struggling morning talk show ("Morning Glory") so why not one about a struggling late night talk show? Oh, sure, there are differences, mostly mandated by the format, where a morning show has two hosts and a weather person, while a late night show has one host, a band, a monologue, etc. And the new member of the crew is a writer, not a producer - but in many ways, this is nearly the same plotline as "Morning Glory", where the show is just a few months from cancellation, and the newcomer has to find a way to motivate people to change and improve themselves so the ratings will go up.
I'm really torn on this one, because it sort of simultaneously makes sense and also doesn't make sense, like the fact that it's about a woman who's hosted a late-night show for several decades, and that just doesn't exist in the real world. Only men get hired to host these shows - I'm not saying that's right or fair, but it's what's traditionally taken place. So portraying something that could only take place in an alternate reality doesn't necessarily feel like a good idea, because it makes me super aware that I'm watching fiction, that this couldn't possibly be real. I think we should work on disabling the "old boy" network, and the mentality that suggests that Americans will only watch a nighttime talk show with a male host, only none of the networks seem willing to roll those dice. Ellen, Kelly Clarkson, hosts of "The View" and "The Talk", they're all on during the day, so the message from the networks seems pretty clear on this point. Again, don't blame the messenger - I'd consider watching a late night show hosted by a woman, only the current crop of Jimmys and Stephen and Seth don't seem willing to give up their spots.
The flip-side of this is that women broke through into the writing staffs years ago, Seth Meyers in particular has been great about highlighting the diversity of his writers' room, he employs a very diverse crew, and as far as I can tell, that was done to get the best possible range of perspective for the show's humor. I can't speak for the writing staffs of the other shows, but as far as I know, hiring with no regard toward race, gender or sexual orientation is now the law, not just a good idea. So on that front, this film feels like it's a bit late, in pointing out a problem that may no longer exist. They try to cover this up by pinning the problem on the show's ficitious host, Katherine Newbury, claiming that she "hates other women" and enjoys the jokes from a writing staff of all white men. Yet the movie also points out that she hasn't even MET most of her current writers, when she finally does she learns that the one writer whose name she knew died several years ago. So, umm, NITPICK POINT then, which is it, is she actively sexist in hiring only men, or is she so out of touch that she doesn't know who's on the staff? Because I don't see how she can be both of those things.
This is all clearly done to set up the "fish out of water" storyline where a woman of Indian descent improbably lands herself a job interview (through a very contrived device) on the same day that Newbury gets pressured to have more women on her writing staff. Again, gotta call a NITPICK POINT because one women doesn't constitute "more women", and then hiring one woman for a short trial period doesn't really move the needle, not nearly far enough, anyway. One person out of eight just isn't going to do it, so what was Newbury really thinking she was accomplishing here?
I wish this had just a bit more focus, there are too many plotlines running at once - there's the fact that Newbury is out of touch with her audience, refuses to do remote segments or book guests that appeal to the younger crowd, the people who wouldn't know who Doris Kearns Goodwin is. Then there's the whole issue of "diversity hiring", which is a complex issue and raises questions that come close to suggesting people should be hired on their merits alone, but this is also contradicted by the fact that the Indian-American woman doesn't seem to be very good at writing jokes, at least not at first. So which is it, should we hire people based on their talent alone, or just because they're female? Again, you can't have both of these reasons in the same story.
Then the film goes a step further, and bungles the whole #metoo storyline - it comes to light that the female host once had a short extra-marital fling with one of her writers. This also doesn't work, because the movement was specially designed to take down men in power, including the entertainment field, who took advantage of female employees. While this is a humbling moment for the character, and getting beyond this is part of her personal growth, it's very tone-deaf to connect this to the #metoo or #timesup headlines, and you just can't gender-flip this. There's not one woman who got called out in the last couple of years for doing what men in power did - back-pedaling by invoking "slut-shaming" or general social media backlash can't make up for this error, either.
It kind of feels like this wanted to be allegorical in some ways - I couldn't help but think of David Letterman's admission and following contrition about a relationship with a female staffer. And other late-night talk show hosts have dealt with situations where they were replaced as a host, and the show survived with a new host, like Craig Ferguson being replaced by James Corden. But no one talk-show host has encountered ALL of these problems - being forced to diversify hiring, dealing with a sex scandal made public, and having the network threaten to replace the host if ratings don't improve - all at the same time. That's what doesn't feel very realistic here.
It's a fact of life, contracts sometimes don't get renewed and ratings sometimes play a part in whether they do or don't, but it's very rare in reality that someone in danger of being replaced could change their ratings enough to make a difference. So it's especially odd that I've seen this plotline in TWO films recently, this one and "Morning Glory", and in both cases the solution is the same - make the host more personable, create some viral moments for maximum attention from younger viewers, rally the troops and make the show BETTER, and all our problems will be solved. Hey, if it was that easy to make good TV, then everyone would just DO it, and it just isn't that simple. Half of all TV shows are always going to get below-average ratings, that's just math.
Also starring Mindy Kaling (last seen in "Ocean's Eight"), John Lithgow (last seen in "Daddy's Home 2"), Hugh Dancy (last seen in "King Arthur"), Reid Scott (last seen in "Dean"), Denis O'Hare (last seen in "The Proposal"), Max Casella (last seen in "Wonder Wheel"), Paul Walter Hauser (last seen in "BlacKkKlansman"), John Early (last seen in "Beatriz at Dinner"), Ike Barinholtz (last seen in "Central Intelligence"), Amy Ryan (ditto), Marc Kudisch, Megalyn Echikunwoke (last seen in "Night School"), Annaleigh Ashford (last seen in "Top Five"), Halston Sage (last seen in "X-Men: Dark Phoenix"), Blake DeLong, Maria Dizzia (last seen in "Vox Lux"), Sakina Jaffrey (last seen in "Definitely, Maybe") with cameos from Bill Maher (last seen in "The Wizard of Lies"), Seth Meyers (last seen in "Always at the Carlyle"), Jake Tapper (last seen in "Get Me Roger Stone").
RATING: 5 out of 10 cue cards
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