Here's Something You Saw Coming: Kaling & Thompson Make 'Late Night' A Hit

LATE NIGHT

★★★ 

Late Night is a rom com set against the world of, uh, late night TV talk shows, but its romance isn’t quite what you’d expect. Mindy Kaling, who wrote the script, stars as a chemical plant worker and ‘comedy nerd’ who unexpectedly lands a writers room job, strictly as a “diversity hire”. She’s working on a show hosted by Emma Thompson, an icon who, now in her 50s, finds herself being passed by. With hard work, devotion to the job, no fear of rattling cages, and plenty of shed tears, Kaling proves herself to the boys club writers; sleeping with the sexy but sleazy Hugh Dancy, before ending up with the more sincere, straight-shooting Reid Scott.

But, for all Kaling’s entanglements with male co-workers, the real rom com tropes are reserved for her most meaningful relationship: with the icy, forbidding Thompson. It’s those two who are initially standoffish, but grow into an original odd couple. When there’s a falling out followed by a sad times montage midway into the final act, we’re sad because boss and worker are going their separate ways. When there’s a grand gesture and public declaration needed to patch up their differences and handball us to a ‘one year later’ epilogue, it’s Thompson who must lay her soul bare.

Despite this unfamiliar spin on a very familiar format, Late Night is still very much a variation on a tried-and-tested entertainment-product formula. It’s both to the credit and detriment of Kaling and director Nisha Ganatra that the whole thing is a tight 100 minutes; moving briskly, doling out the charm, hitting standard emotional beats, and daring for uplift, rather than satire, in its portrait of the late night world.

What makes it worth seeing is Thompson’s duly lauded performance. As the person at the centre of the whole fictional production, she’s allowed all manner of contradictions: both aloof and invested, caring too little and too much; at once icy and fiery, a model of English politeness yet full of lacerating rage, especially with regards to the changing world. To those around her, she's terrifying, frustrating, exasperating; a figure to be both feared and pitied.

Which is, of course, what makes her a great foil for Kaling’s determined rom com heroine, and a natural object of affection for both central character and viewers. One of the oldest tricks of the romantic comedy is making you, too, fall in love with the love interest. Late Night does that plenty well, and genuinely delights in doing so.

WHO YOU THINK I AM
★★1/2

Who You Think I Am boasts a banal title, but if you squint at the monosyllabic words, you can almost see it echoing the premise. Juliette Binoche plays a bookish 50-something lit-prof who, following a controversial-but-trying-to-be-amicable separation from her long term husband, Charles Berling, has fallen into the digital dating scene. To keep tabs on the young fuckboi she’s in an intermittent thing with, she creates a fake profile as a blonde, cute, 25-year-old intern. The dangers of digital stalking and identity mongering soon arise when handsome, earnest young François Civil happens upon her account. Texting leads to sexting leads to phonecalls and phone-sex, and the whole thing is spiralling out of control; this less about a woman learning to love again, but catfish for the first time. It’s all being recounted by Binoche to her therapist, Nicole Garcia, too; the framing narrative adding another layer to its basic theme of identities and told stories.

In its early stretches, Safy Nebbou’s film seems as if it’s going to be an exploration of society’s obsession with façades, the way it views women, and how ladies of a certain age can be made to feel invisible, less than they once were. Only, as things progress, and the thriller tropes pick up, it all becomes pretty silly; Nebbou, a director with no discernable personal style, fashioning something blandy blue filtered and slickly mounted. It’s not just the expected tension that comes as Civil and the real Binoche draw dangerously close to colliding in IRLz, either. Instead, there’s all kinds of scandals, revelations, and reversals; which may satisfy those who like thriller tropes, but will definitely dissatisfy those who’ve hit the cinema thinking — because of Binoche’s presence and the praise for her many layered performance — they’re in for anything resembling a work of art.

OPHELIA

★★

If you forget its Shakespearean association, Ophelia is basically a soap opera in ren faire threads. Of course, the whole production is mounted on the marketing angle/elevator pitch that is its Shakespearean association: What if Hamlet... but bubblegum feminist?

Here, the story of one of ol’ Billy’s most famous tragedies is told from the perspective of a once-peripheral female character, and the result is rather more like a dragon-less Game Of Thrones episode, replete with people being slain upon uprising climax in ultra dramatic ultra slow motion. There’s no attempt at mimicking Shakespearean language; not just in archaic idioms, but even by way of sly wit or wordplay. Instead, it’s all too earnest and middlebrow, something merrily announced on opening via Daisy Ridley's narration, which literally says: “I was always a wilful girl, and followed my heart and spoke my mind. And it is high time I should tell you my story – myself!”

Ridley’s performance is just as earnest as the drama, Clive Owen is stuck under various terrible wigs, and Naomi Watts at least gets to enjoy playing the dual roles of prim Queen Gertrude and witchy Mechtild. Behind the camera is Australian director Claire McCarthy (last seen on local release with The Waiting City a decade ago), whose photographic choices fit the middlebrow brief. There’s not a single shot askance, moment of formalism, or note of genuine provocation. Instead, it’s the kind of non-threatening arthouse bourgeoiserie pitched at the blue rinse set, made to be paired with afternoon tea.