New from mindykaling, LateNightMovie is a tough-love letter to the insane ordeal of pursuing an actual career in comedy
, an affable, sometimes candid dramedy about the various anxieties and exhilarations of writing for a late night talk show, comedy obsessed ex-chemical plant employee Molly has just scored her dream job writing for her favorite host, the cantankerous Katherine Newbury . Molly enters her dumpy new office as if she’s walking through the gates of Olympus.
As a boss, Katherine is certainly fucked up, and her ticking time bomb of neuroses isn’t helped by the news that, after decades as the host of her own late night show, she’s forced to call it quits and make way for a young and hip new host in the form of a Dane Cook-wannabe dudebro .
Burditt’s suspicion about Molly being a diversity hire is correct. In a panic to bring some new life to her show and hopefully save her job, Katherine decides to hire a female writer, any female writer, for her all-male staff. It’s at this point the underwhelming first act makes its first mistake: Molly landing the job is tied to a series of sitcom conveniences that don’t match Kaling’s otherwise unfiltered depiction of talk show politics.
The second problem with the first act is that it’s hard to become emotionally engaged with Katherine’s conflict. We’re told that she used to be great, but all we see is a bitter person who doesn’t even seem to be interested in what she does for a living anymore. So why should we care whether she keeps her job or not? We see nothing of her show at a time when she’s supposed to have been hilarious and engaging.
Kaling was an intern for Conan O’Brian, and spent considerable time in comedy writing rooms, penning almost two hundred episodes for shows like
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