Rachel McAdams plays a television producer who gets laid off from her associate producer job in New Jersey and then miraculously lands the executive producer gig at a last place network morning show that is clearly supposed to be CBS's The Early Show. She is overwhelmed at first, but quickly grabs the bull by the horns, hires a craggy yet decorated older journalist (Harrison Ford) she's revered since her youth to co-anchor the show (with Diane Keaton, who is hilarious in this movie), shifts the show's focus to sensationalistic internet meme-spawning segments only, and the show is spared cancellation due to her ratings-spiking genius. She also forms a reluctant friendship with Harrison Ford's prickly character that, thankfully, never turns sexual. They're a lot like Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy -- like, almost plagiaristically like them -- but the entertainment world could do with a few more Lemons and Jacks as far as I'm concerned.

As formulaic as this movie is, I still found it undeniably enjoyable despite myself. Obviously that cast is great, but the script also has a lot of genuinely funny moments, and when it does get heartwarming, it does a good job of dodging the overly saccharine potholes in its path. I mean, obviously McAdams' character would never get that job, and the way in which Harrison Ford's character flat-out refuses to do his (he believes he's above cooking segments and gossip reporting despite having signed up for a morning show) for the first three quarters of the movie wouldn't be tolerated in real life, but there are moments of realness that were nice touches. When McAdams is poor and out of work, her suits are cheap and not tailored, her hair looks like crap and her heels aren't very high, for example. She looks the part. If this were, say, a Katherine Heigl movie she'd be Louboutins'd out the entire time, despite her near poverty-level associate producer salary. Little details like that are nice.

And for what it's worth, I used to work at a certain major morning talk show (not The Early Show), and the scene where she meets everybody who works at The Schmearly Show and the majority of them are incompetent, self-centered, worthless assholes? And the offices are cramped and disgusting and falling apart? Kiiiiind of dead-on accurate. Again, a movie about Jessica Alba or Sandra Bullock or whoever running a TV show would have had luxurious offices with zillions of dollars worth of modern decor in it, but this movie doesn't think we're that stupid. Can't hate on that.

Only real downer is that Morning Glory definitely has a prevailing message that hard news has no place on television and that light entertainment has and should overtake it entirely that might depress you, if you're one of those Murrow-school purists, but that's what scenes featuring Diane Keaton in a tutu is for -- to distract and cheer you up. This movie has covered all the bases.

Your thoughts on Morning Glory? Leave them in the comments, and then see our favorite movies about TV!