79) Broadcast News

Broadcast News (1987)

Director: James L. Brooks

Starring: Holly Hunter, William Hurt, Albert Brooks, Robert Prosky, Lois Chiles, Joan Cusack, Peter Hackes, Christian Clemenson, Jack Nicholson

I'm in the middle of marking final essays for Introduction to Cinema but have come down sick so have decided to take the afternoon off and watch a movie. Broadcast News has been sitting on my shelf for a while now and when I think what should I watch today, it always comes up but I've never actually sat down and watched it. Given how I was feeling today though, something a bit lighter was exactly what I needed so it got the call up.

Network news producer Jane Craig (Hunter) and her best friend, reporter Aaron Altman (Brooks) are outraged when their superiors hire the un-credentialed pretty-boy Tom Grunnick (Hurt) to be a reporter, in a move that represents the industry-wide trend towards entertainment news they both despise. Tom is aware that he is grossly unqualified to do his job, so relies heavily on Jane to help him get by. Tom wows the network heads with a report he files on rape victims which ultimately earns him the call up, leapfrogging Aaron to anchor a special bulletin regarding a military action in Libya. With the help of Jane, who talks him through the broadcast step by step through his earpiece, Tom is a hit. Much to her disgust Jane finds that she is actually falling for Tom, only to have Aaron throw a spanner in the works by declaring his love for her. On top of all that, the network has ordered the news division to cut over $20million from its budget so massive layoffs lie ahead.

James L. Brooks is a big name, but probably not as big as he should be. He doesn't have the instant recognition that names like Woody Allen have, but the guy is an absolute gun. As a writer, director and/or producer his name is attached to films including As Good as it Gets, Terms of Endearment, Big and Jerry Maguire and television shows including Taxi, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and, of course, The Simpsons. His specialty seems to be romantic comedies, but the romantic comedies that he makes have a bit more depth than what you often get from what can be a very shallow genre. This is obvious when you consider that Broadcast News received seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, As Good As it Gets won two Oscars and received a further five nominations and Terms of Endearment won five Oscars, including Best Picture and received another six nominations (note I am intentionally choosing not to refer to the performance of Spanglish).

In Broadcast News, Brooks takes his romantic comedy narrative and plonks it in the middle of a quite interesting context. Not only are we watching Jane trying to sort out her personal life, we are watching her trying to deal with the fact that her professional life, which has been everything to her, is changing. In Broadcast News, Jane and Aaron have to deal with the fact that the integrity of television journalism is being compromised, becoming infotainment in the name of ratings. As you watch Jane lament the fact that every national news network reported on a domino train world record attempt while overlooking a major congress ruling, you can't help but consider the nature of today's news broadcasting, where an report on laundry liquid or fad diets or dole bludgers, or the announcement of the contestants for the next series of Dancing with the Stars passes as current affairs. Broadcast News stands alongside Network as a brilliant exploration of the changing nature, or the corruption, of television.

Broadcast News may seem to have a reasonably generic love-triangle formula, but Brooks actually does something a bit different with it. The usual formula calls for the girl to be torn between the likable loser friend (see Ducky from Pretty in Pink) and the dreamy heart-throb (Blane in Pretty in Pink, although watching that movie, Andrew McCarthy reminded me too much of Gene Wilder for me to take him seriously as a heart-throb). However, in this case Brooks has provided a variant on the theme, in that the loser best friend is also a bit of an arrogant jerk and there's very little that is likable about him, while the dreamy heart-throb is quite humble and self-effacing. So while we still feel sorry for Aaron because Jane doesn't seem to realise that he's been there the whole time, we still don't want them to end up together because he's a tool.

The weakest point of the film is an unnecessary epilogue which brings the three main characters back together a few years down the track. It feels just a little forced, and as though Brooks could not work out what note to finish the film on. It's a shame because up until that point it has been really good.

The film has a nice little cameo from Jack Nicholson as network news anchor, Bill Rorich. I suppose the role is slightly more than a cameo, it just feels like one because with the exception of one scene towards the end of the film where Jack's character shows up, he is only ever seen on monitors. Jack Nicholson has done quite nicely out of his working relationship with James L. Brooks. In fact two of Nicholson's three Oscars have come from parts written and directed by Brooks (1984 Best Supporting Actor for Terms of Endearment and 1998 Best Actor for As Good as it Gets). Nicholson is obviously aware of the debt he owes to Brooks as he will make his first first screen appearance in three years when he appears alongside Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson in James L. Brooks' upcoming romantic comedy Everything You've Got.

Broadcast News is a really clever film and the themes that it explores are as relevant now as they were when it was made. It does what James L. Brooks does best, romantic comedy that provides something more than fluff.