Emma Thompson is excellent. Mindy Kaling is cute and funny. The other cast members are fun. Overall it is entertaining. There are some funny moments but this is more a slow-burn drama and character study than laugh-out-loud comedy.
Some scenes and characters work well other moments seem arbitrary and do not unfold naturally. The dialogue and actions as written tell us the how the characters are feeling, but we are told how people feel - the impressions do not come naturally from the situation.
Thompson's character Katherine interviews Dorian Kearns Goodwin and the execs don't like that she does serious stuff instead of jokes on social media memes. But Katherine is also supposedly a horrible and ruthless boss distant from her staff. She has a reputation for hating women that is why her writing staff are all men, but she hasn't even met most of them anyway so it seems like she doesn't care much for her male staff either. Katherine fires a few writers but with Molly's influence later learns the names of the current writing team - but apparently later fires most of them anyway. As a performer Katherine has rested on her laurels with a tired show. So she bounces back by interviewing oddball youtube stars and the clips go viral. I don't know how all these elements fit together. Wasn't she ruthless due to a perfectionist attitude? But the show is said to be tired? New hire Molly comes up with one or two ideas for the monologue but I do not really see how she actually changes much. Characters say that she changes things, but we just don't see this in the film.
Many ideas are raised but most get just a cursory exploration.
Some scenes and characters work well other moments seem arbitrary and do not unfold naturally. The dialogue and actions as written tell us the how the characters are feeling, but we are told how people feel - the impressions do not come naturally from the situation.
Thompson's character Katherine interviews Dorian Kearns Goodwin and the execs don't like that she does serious stuff instead of jokes on social media memes. But Katherine is also supposedly a horrible and ruthless boss distant from her staff. She has a reputation for hating women that is why her writing staff are all men, but she hasn't even met most of them anyway so it seems like she doesn't care much for her male staff either. Katherine fires a few writers but with Molly's influence later learns the names of the current writing team - but apparently later fires most of them anyway. As a performer Katherine has rested on her laurels with a tired show. So she bounces back by interviewing oddball youtube stars and the clips go viral. I don't know how all these elements fit together. Wasn't she ruthless due to a perfectionist attitude? But the show is said to be tired? New hire Molly comes up with one or two ideas for the monologue but I do not really see how she actually changes much. Characters say that she changes things, but we just don't see this in the film.
Many ideas are raised but most get just a cursory exploration.