CDirected by Nisha Ganatra Starring Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling Review by Jon Kissel |  |
A famously instructive cultural scenario occurred on NBC in the mid-2000’s, wherein two new shows about sketch comedy debuted at the same time. One, Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, made its writers into heroes battling the forces of ignorance, one comedy bit at a time. The other, Tina Fey’s 30 Rock, deliberately made its show-within-a-show a badly-rated-and-received series of fart jokes and desperate attempts to create merchandising. Despite having less of a pedigree, 30 Rock ran for seven seasons while Studio 60 was quickly canceled. There were surely dozens of reasons for this divergence, but one was that Studio 60 never had a believable sketch show in its center, especially if it was going to be posited as some central part of American cultural life. A show can’t convince me that their writers or performers are some kinds of treasured icons and then include scenes from the show-within-a-show that make that treasuring implausible. Director Nisha Ganatra and writer/star Mindy Kaling haven’t taken this to heart in Late Night, a film about an inexperienced writer starting her first gig on a revered-but-fading host’s show. All involved need to convince the viewer that they’re good at their jobs, but Kaling may have been too consumed with her excellent work on The Office to pay attention to what was happening in NBC’s other time slots and file that information away for later use.
Kaling plays Molly Patel, a cheerful employee in a chemical plant who fancies herself the office jokester. She’s hired by venerable late-night host Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson) as an explicit diversity hire, a last-ditch effort by Katherine to spice up a writers’ room solely stocked by white, male Harvard alums. What follows is the predictable assortment of initial setbacks and underestimations, followed by breakthroughs and an uncommon bond formed between Molly and Katherine, her boss’ boss’ boss. I doubt Molly went out for drinks with her plant director, but here nor there. The Studio 60 problem is most apparent with Molly’s arc, wherein her first accepted joke is an abortion-rights gag that framed as a brave stance but is something the hackiest hack Twitter lefty constantly pushes out everytime a gaggle of Republican men passes a new restrictive bill. The instinct for the joke is solid, but the material is tired. As a shorthand and a way to keep things moving, that single joke of Molly’s serves as a calling card, despite the fact that each night’s show requires dozens of jokes and one-liners.
The lack of imagination in Late Night continues from there. Katherine is closer to lead of the film than co-lead, as the film is just as much about her breaking out of her rut than it is Molly finding a new profession. Thompson, who doesn’t hide her English accent or play down her patrician manner, seems an odd choice as a colleague of Conan O’Brien or Jay Leno, and her guest line-ups (Doris Kearns Goodwin and Dianne Feinstein on the same night) are more appropriate for Nightline. The film never considers that Thompson might not want to continue doing the same monologue/bit/first guest/second guest/musical act format, or that she would be better suited to the kind of long-form show John Oliver is doing, a show that the film knows exists because it includes references to him. Instead, Late Night tries to force Katherine to mimic her rivals and coddle her audience, instead of finding a new niche in a crowded landscape. One doesn’t cast Thompson because they think she’d be good at doing man-on-the-street gimmicks, or that she’d envision herself as Jimmy Fallon instead of Terry Gross. It’s another instance of the film insisting that something that has not been suitably established (Molly is a good writer, Katherine cares about the lives of her youtube star guests) is instead written in stone.
What the film does get out of Thomspon is a withering turn as a cruel boss, but one that retains audience sympathy through raw aspirational charm. It’s easy to imagine why someone would stay with Katherine, as a drop of praise would cover over barrels of criticism. She wills the film into watchability alongside the earnest Kaling and a supporting cast of heavy hitters like Denis O’Hare, Hugh Dancy, Amy Ryan, and Paul Walter Hauser. Late Night doesn’t communicate any authenticity in its depiction of the talk-show industry, or of a post-#metoo environment where workplace relationships are especially fraught with power dynamics, but it has a greater sense of the writers’ room itself, no doubt a symptom of Kaling’s years of experience on all sides of one. Late Night’s fun in its behind the scenes back-and-forths, and Ganatra makes a film that has existed in one form or another on TV into something that belongs on big screens. It’s shockingly Kaling who emerges as the disappointment with a script that’s far beneath her earlier work. Late Night needed its own writers’ room, not for comedy punch up but to find a better way into its plot and its characters. C
The lack of imagination in Late Night continues from there. Katherine is closer to lead of the film than co-lead, as the film is just as much about her breaking out of her rut than it is Molly finding a new profession. Thompson, who doesn’t hide her English accent or play down her patrician manner, seems an odd choice as a colleague of Conan O’Brien or Jay Leno, and her guest line-ups (Doris Kearns Goodwin and Dianne Feinstein on the same night) are more appropriate for Nightline. The film never considers that Thompson might not want to continue doing the same monologue/bit/first guest/second guest/musical act format, or that she would be better suited to the kind of long-form show John Oliver is doing, a show that the film knows exists because it includes references to him. Instead, Late Night tries to force Katherine to mimic her rivals and coddle her audience, instead of finding a new niche in a crowded landscape. One doesn’t cast Thompson because they think she’d be good at doing man-on-the-street gimmicks, or that she’d envision herself as Jimmy Fallon instead of Terry Gross. It’s another instance of the film insisting that something that has not been suitably established (Molly is a good writer, Katherine cares about the lives of her youtube star guests) is instead written in stone.
What the film does get out of Thomspon is a withering turn as a cruel boss, but one that retains audience sympathy through raw aspirational charm. It’s easy to imagine why someone would stay with Katherine, as a drop of praise would cover over barrels of criticism. She wills the film into watchability alongside the earnest Kaling and a supporting cast of heavy hitters like Denis O’Hare, Hugh Dancy, Amy Ryan, and Paul Walter Hauser. Late Night doesn’t communicate any authenticity in its depiction of the talk-show industry, or of a post-#metoo environment where workplace relationships are especially fraught with power dynamics, but it has a greater sense of the writers’ room itself, no doubt a symptom of Kaling’s years of experience on all sides of one. Late Night’s fun in its behind the scenes back-and-forths, and Ganatra makes a film that has existed in one form or another on TV into something that belongs on big screens. It’s shockingly Kaling who emerges as the disappointment with a script that’s far beneath her earlier work. Late Night needed its own writers’ room, not for comedy punch up but to find a better way into its plot and its characters. C
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