Based loosely on Mindy Kaling’s experience as the only woman and person of color on the writing staff for The Office, Late Night is about a chemical plant employee, Molly Patel (played by Kaling), who uses a roundabout way to get an interview that eventually lands her the dream job, a writing gig on the late night show hosted by Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson).
However, her image of Katherine as a fan and lover of the show is almost immediately shattered when Katherine turns out to be very abrasive and confrontational. But when Katherine is threatened with being replaced as the host due to a decline in viewership, she has to find a way to be relevant again, the responsibility of which falls under Molly and the all white, male writing staff she is working in.
Taking cues from something like The Devil Wears Prada, the general framework of the film is pretty clear. It’s a fairly standard feel-good comedy. However, it’s a feel-good comedy with a lot on its mind. It’s a film about being a woman in the workplace, it’s about the effects of a toxic work environment when left unchecked, it’s about the significance and necessity for diversity, it’s about internalized misogyny, it’s about power and privileges, and plenty of other timely subjects.
Unfortunately, this is where the big nagging problem of the movie comes in. It touches on many issues, plenty of which are ripe for drama and biting satire. However, the script by Kaling doesn’t really dig much deeper beyond superficial or obvious observations. Topics are often reduced to quick buzzwords that are thrown around here and there, along with easy phrases like, “I wish I was a woman of color so I could get any job I want without qualifications,” which is said by one of the staff writers, and never really addressed again. This results in the satirical aspects of the film lacking in any real bite. I don’t doubt that Kaling is absolutely speaking from real experiences, but the way it’s dramatized here feels at best, standard and basic, and at worst, straight up outdated and out-of-touch. It pulls the movie away from being truly great.
This is further heightened by the lack of tangible details with certain characters. Molly and Katherine share roughly equal screen time, but it is ultimately Katherine who has the major arc, so she ends up being the character the movie leans on the most, especially for the emotional beats in the latter half that she shares with her husband, who is played by John Lithgow. Molly is certainly likable, but we don’t get to know her in a way that suggests the personal roots that Kaling is drawing from, which feels odd. We don’t get to know her family, we don’t see what drew her to the ambition of being a comedy writer, we don’t spend much time at all on her life before getting the job, there’s just a lot that feels missing or incomplete.
Thankfully, while the film disappoints in handling the topical themes, I feel like it more than makes up for it with the comedy. It’s a very funny movie, full of sharp lines, funny character quirks, and running gags. With Kaling penning the script, it’s no doubt she gets plenty of killer lines, but everyone gets a moment to shine. Having the story take place in the world of late night is just really cool to see, and it allows for an atmosphere of relentless banter that I really enjoy seeing. Director, Nisha Ganatra, doesn’t do a whole lot stylistically, but she brings a level of empathy and intimacy that allows for moments to have more weight than they probably had on the page.
Late Night is a bit of a frustrating film. It’s often so close to being great, but just as it sets its eyes on a target, it ends up pulling its punches. Maybe a couple extra passes on the script would’ve done the job, I don’t know, but its reach ends up exceeding its grasp. I still admire the ambition. Despite that, it’s a deeply charming film with likable characters, and more than enough laughs to say that I had a really good time watching it. It’s so rare to see a movie written and directed by women of Indian descent, and especially one that doesn’t feel obligated to be about the Indian American experience. So, if I’m being a tad forgiving of this, that’s likely why. I did genuinely enjoy myself for most of the film, and would give it a light recommendation, but when it comes to the themes being explored here, I’m hoping we get more stories like this that can go deeper into the issues and tap into more complex ideas.