Late Night

Mindy Kaling knows the tele­vi­sion world. After begin­ning her career as an intern on The Conan O’Brien show and lat­er mak­ing her name through star­ring in and writ­ing on The Office and her own sit­com, The Mindy Project, she has slow­ly but sure­ly built a career out of the small screen. This world there­fore feels like a nat­ur­al fit for Kaling’s first out­ing as a screen­writer and lead actor, lever­ag­ing her insight and nat­ur­al charm into a neat 100-minute pack­age. Late Night, direct­ed by Nisha Gana­tra, is a film made by women who not only love tele­vi­sion but under­stand its unique place in Amer­i­can culture.

After the dis­ap­point­ment of The Chil­dren Act, Emma Thomp­son is giv­en a plum role as Kather­ine New­bury, a British talk show host in New York City who has been a main­stay of Amer­i­can tele­vi­sion for years. Known for her acer­bic wit and high­brow con­ver­sa­tion, she faces can­cel­la­tion as she becomes increas­ing­ly unpop­u­lar in the cur­rent age. Stub­born, fre­quent­ly unlik­able Kather­ine is set in her ways but cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly does not want to lose her job, so she resolves to hire a new writer to the con­spic­u­ous ros­ter of straight white men who script her show.

Enter Mindy Kaling’s Mol­ly Patel. Fol­low­ing in the noble tra­di­tion of ​‘small­town-girl-gets-her-big-break’ movies, includ­ing Work­ing Girl and The Dev­il Wears Pra­da, she’s a pep­py aspir­ing com­ic from Penn­syl­va­nia cur­rent­ly liv­ing with her aunt and uncle in Queens. She arrives wide-eyed and full of ideas, but inevitably comes to under­stand that her image of what it’s like to work in tele­vi­sion doesn’t quite match up to real­i­ty. Mired by casu­al sex­ism and racism in the work­place, Molly’s chief weapon against her naysay­ers is her tenac­i­ty – just like Katherine.

Thomp­son and Kaling’s chem­istry is the film’s bedrock. Their easy rap­port is a joy to watch, and the for­mer sells her character’s com­plex­i­ty with aplomb. It’s Thompson’s finest role in a long time, paired with some absolute­ly inspired wardrobe choic­es care of cos­tume design­er Mitchell Tra­vers. With two charm­ing cen­tral per­for­mances, Late Night only has to be a well-observed com­e­dy about the tri­als and tribu­la­tions of being a work­ing woman in a male-dom­i­nat­ed indus­try. But it doesn’t push these obser­va­tions far enough, instead con­cern­ing itself with hit­ting famil­iar comedic beats.

A roman­tic sub­plot involved Hugh Dancy’s sleazy come­di­an, Char­lie, feels shoe­horned in, and Reid Scott’s doubt­ing Thomas (lit­er­al­ly called Tom) is a thin stock vil­lain, an emblem of White Male Priv­i­lege with­out real­ly say­ing much at all. John Lith­gow, play­ing Katherine’s lov­ing hus­band Wal­ter, has slight­ly more to do, and is as depend­able as ever in his sup­port­ing role.

Late Night is rem­i­nis­cent of a lot of great movies (and the TV show 30 Rock) with­out ever striv­ing to cre­ate its own iden­ti­ty. Even deal­ing with big themes – diver­si­ty, ageism, sex­ism, racism – the film feels curi­ous­ly mealy-mouthed. Yet it’s hard to not be won over by its unapolo­getic earnest­ness, not to men­tion Kaling and Thomp­son. Despite its flaws, Late Night is a con­vinc­ing argu­ment for more inclu­sion in the enter­tain­ment indus­try, as the very best com­e­dy comes from life, observed in all its messy glory.