Broadcast News

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

I head this film's name being thrown around when Morning Glory came out. Having just seen How Do You Know last night I realised As Good As It Gets was the only other James L. Brooks directed feature I had seen before that. Shame on me.

Well it's way better than Morning Glory that's for sure. Again, it's hard to classify as a romantic comedy, it's not particularly comedic and no-one ends up with anyone. Hell, they even break up in one of the final scenes at the airport. Way to buck a trend. It's a drama first and foremost that has a lot of romantic comedy elements. But who cares about labelling films into genres, was it any good? Yes. Yes it was.

William Hurt, Albert Brooks and Holly Hunter are all great. You can get behind everyone of them, you want them all to succeed and you know that it can't happen. It's the same kind of love triangle set up as How Do You Know but with very different characters and set against the backdrop of a news show. And once again Jack Nicholson shows up in a few scenes.

This film takes some big jumps in time, there is a prologue of them as kids in school and an epilogue set 7 years later where they all meet up after the events of the film proper. Although it feels a little superfluous, the acting is so good we pick up the characters quickly and don't need to be told backstory, it does round out the film nicely and allows for a more melancholic ending, rather than the downer of the aforementioned airport scene that would end the film with these bookends.

The best thing about the film is the acting and dialogue. These people feel real. Even if we don't understand all the news terminology or technical issues they deal with, we are always grounded emotionally with these guys and become invested in the outcome of events because of them. Good stuff!