Directed by: Nisha Ganatra
Written by: Mindy Kaling
Cast: Mindy Kaling, Emma Thompson, John Lithgow, Denis O’Hare, Amy Ryan, Ike Barinholtz
Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson) is a legendary, award-winning late-night talk show host. In a field dominated by men, she’s a pioneer. However, she’s getting older, and her show is growing stale.
After accusations of being anti-woman (her writing staff is all men), she decides to hire a female writer. Her right-hand man Brad (Denis O’Hare) hires Molly Patel (Mindy Kaling), a chemical plant efficiency expert from Pennsylvania with zero experience in comedy writing. Molly is a longtime fan of Katherine, and this is her dream job but she’s a real fish out of water here, and most of the other writers want nothing to do with her.
Now Katherine has some diversity on her writing staff!! Everything will be great, and the show will go on.
Not so fast. The head of the network Caroline Morton (Amy Ryan) threatens to replace Katherine with Daniel Tennant (Ike Barinholtz), a young, up and coming stand-up comedian who is pretty much the opposite of Katherine.
Katherine’s show hasn’t been good in a long time. Her guests aren’t exciting. Nobody is tuning in anymore. When she tries to host a young, exciting guest, it backfires on her horribly and results in negative press.
Katherine is desperate and actually sits down with her writing staff, something she hasn’t done before. She’s not desperate enough to learn their names though, and just refers to them by numbers. When Molly arrives for her first day, she’s “Number 8.”
Molly clashes with head writer Tom Campbell (Reid Scott) when she has some ideas for the monologue, because the monologue is ALWAYS written by Tom. Molly works hard to get her ideas heard though, because she has some very good ones.
Molly keeps trying really hard but Katherine is an ice queen. I lost count of the number of times she threatened to fire Molly. Even though it seems like Katherine and Molly have nothing in common, they are eventually able to see past their differences to create fresh content for Katherine’s show.
Together, the writing team come up with some hilarious, sometimes awkward but still funny bits to liven up the late night show. But will it be enough to keep her on the air?
Late Night also stars John Lithgow as Katherine’s husband Walter Lovell, Hugh Dancy as writer Charlie Fain, and Max Casella as writer Burditt.
I enjoyed Late Night. I thought it was funny, and the cast seemed to have a good time with this one. Mindy Kaling was a delight as always, and she played well alongside Emma Thompson.
A few times I wondered if this was semi-autobiographical, since Mindy Kaling was the writer of this film. I guess I can re-read her books to find out!!
If you enjoy late night talk shows and want a behind the scenes peek at the workings of one, check out Late Night.
