critical consensus proclaims Late Night to be: “Smart, timely, and brought to life by a terrific cast, LATE NIGHT is a workplace comedy with a lot of heart—and just as many laughs.”
The low budget independent movie made quite an impact at this year’s Sundance Film Festival where Amazon Studios acquired its U.S. distribution rights for a record $13 million.
So what’s up here?
“LATE NIGHT” is a diversity-hire, media dramedy.
It stars Emma Thompson as British-born veteran TV talk show hostess Katherine Newbury whose New York City based ‘Tonight with Katherine Newbury’ program is frankly getting a bit long in the tooth.
Her writer’s pool? All male.
Now the network wants to replace her with a fresher, hipper host.
Time to take diversity action!
Enter Molly Patel (Mindy Kaling) who walks in applying for a writer’s position. Her credentials? Chemical plant efficiency expert and longtime fan of the show.
The rest may be predictable but making for and hour and 40 fun-minutes at the movies.
A lot of credit here goes to Ms. Kaling who also wrote the screenplay and co-produced the picture.
Additional support comes from Hugh Dancy, Reid Scott, Ike Barinholtz and John Lighgow playing Emma Thompson’s husband.
Of course Emma Thompson—as usual—is in rare form as the biting punchlines fly high throughout the movie.
And director Nisha Ganatra sure transposed Kaling’s writing well to the big screen.
No superheros in this one.
Unless, of course, one wants to tip their hat to Mindy Kaling for stepping up from ‘The Office‘, ‘The Mindy Project‘, and ‘Ocean’s 8‘ to now bringing “LATE NIGHT” to completion
Garry Shandling’s fictional Larry Sanders would have loved it—and I think you will too!
The bright little film with a big heart and high hopes.
It’s “LATE NIGHT” opening ‘wide’ this weekend.
My grade: B
