Nisha Ganatra (The High Note) tries a formula that’s been tried and true with a slightly different spin in Late Night. The Emma Thompson (Howard’s End, Sense and Sensibility) dramedy focuses on her career as an acclaimed late-night talk show host who might be on the tail end of her career after plummeting ratings in recent months/years. Flanked by an all-white male staff of writers, Katherine Newberry’s (Thompson) material has become predictably stale.

While much of that probably has to do with the groupthink of writers themselves, Katherine seems unwilling to take on any blame. So, to mix things up, she hires a young Indian woman named Molly (Mindy Kaling – NBC’s The Office, Fox’s The Mindy Project) to mix things up and infuse a new life back into her show. Well, it doesn’t take much to figure out that Molly does just that while overcoming astigmatism and a few hiccups. Late Night is not a bad movie. It’s just a very predictable movie you’ll likely forget about within a few days or weeks of seeing it.

Katherine is not the most likable person in the world. She can be cold-hearted and downright cruel, identifying her staff by mere numbers because she has little interest in knowing their names or anything about them. She’s an old-school Brit who cares less about social media, refuses her self-defined standards, and doesn’t mind being called a snoot by her critics. But she does care about declining ratings and the impending talk of her being replaced, especially by the younger, brash Daniel Tennant (Ike Barinholtz) and his frat-boy humor, which Katherine finds repulsive. So she’s willing to do whatever it takes to keep her job, including a “diversity hire” in Molly. I’m uncertain if she’s as opposed to Molly’s presence as much as she is ignorant of the need for a diversified staff. What happened to work for parts of the past 30 years has slowly given way to shows that are more current and in tune with the viewers.

But now that Molly is here, it’s her goal to stay there. Though on a three-month internship-type hire, this is her dream job to make permanent. That involves impressing Catherine and erasing the stereotypes within her team’s culture. As mentioned, it’s easy to figure out what will happen. This is, after all, a heartfelt comedy at its core, though some critical issues are tackled effectively through Kaling’s acting and her writing (she helped create the script for this movie).

There are no distinguishable characters outside of Catherine and Molly in this movie. Each of the men on Catherine’s writing team is lost in the shuffle, which isn’t entirely bad since the movie is far less about them and far more about Molly and her trying to impress Catherine and everyone else at Late Night. Nonetheless, it’s something to bring up in this far-from-perfect movie.

Late Night is a cute movie, but it’s not a must-see. However, you could do much worse with a less-than-stellar 2019.

Plot 7.5/10
Character Development 7.5/10
Character Chemistry 7.5/10
Acting 7.5/10
Screenplay 8.5/10
Directing 7.5/10
Cinematography 6.5/10
Sound 6.5/10
Hook and Reel 7.5/10
Universal Relevance 7.5/10
74%

C

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