EJ Paras’s review published on Letterboxd:
“Can you believe it? I just risked my life for a network that tests my face with focus groups.”
What a lovely film. I don’t think the movie ever tries hard for its laughs, but they’re all definitely earned. Holly Hunter, William Hurt, and Albert Brooks are just so phenomenal in this film, with such fully-formed characters caught in a love triangle and their own personal career ambitions.
It has some of the beats of a conventional rom-com, but it’s the way the film dances and rests in those beats with its great characters that makes Broadcast News rise above a lot of its contemporaries.
“A lot of alliteration from anxious anchors placed in powerful posts!”
The last 15-30 minutes are fantastic. I felt a lump in my throat for a lot of the characters; it’s a cruel world sometimes. The fates of the three leads are so consistent with their personal ideologies that we’ve seen throughout the film’s duration, that I’m glad the alternate ending or “Hollywood ending” didn’t win out. Kudos, James L. Brooks.
I loved the newsroom sequences; Holly Hunter barking expletives and firebombs to ensure the best version of the broadcast goes live or that the anchor is duly ready. It’s magical. I used to do TV in college, and while we weren’t even a tenth of the level of competence and professionalism of this crew, it just reminded me of my days there and it was fun to recollect.
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