Audience Member
Broadcast News is my favorite romcom by a long shot. It’s hilarious, witty, relatable, and it has aged extremely well. In fact, in 2024, its themes feel even more prescient than they must have in 1987. Broadcast News is a workplace romantic comedy, and it is specifically a journalism centered romantic comedy, placing it within a tradition going back to His Girl Friday. Just like in His Girl Friday, journalism and the ethics of journalism are just as important to the film as the character’s romantic entanglements. Broadcast News also plays with elements of satire throughout its runtime, subverting typical romcom tropes in favor of an engaging exploration of workplace romance, jealousy, and the degradation of news media. It’s the kind of movie that shows the full potential of the romantic comedy genre, and it never fails to make me laugh and think, often simultaneously.
The film tells the story of Jane, a news producer in D.C, Aaron, her coworker and best friend, and Tom, a charismatic news anchor who represents everything Jane hates about the growing sensationalism of the news. This story is told through an immensely clever screenplay, and the dialogue throughout the movie feels natural and incredibly funny without ever feeling forced. The main characters are artfully written, and they each feel relatable and flawed in their own way. The film begins by showing the audience small snippets from each of the main three characters' childhood's, giving us the perfect nugget of insight into the kind of people they will each eventually become. Jane is neurotic and a bit of an emotional mess, but she is also a determined and hardworking woman with strong principles. Holly Hunter’s performance is a masterclass, and her mix of power and vulnerability make Jane one of the best female characters in a comedy movie. Aaron is just as sympathetic as he is detestable, and Albert Brooks makes him so likable that you continue to feel bad for him even when he reveals his hidden cruelty. Tom, played by William Hurt, gets by on his looks and natural magnetism, but his seemingly genuine determination to improve makes him feel like a fully fleshed out character as opposed to a caricature.
Instead of falling into lazy cliches, the love triangle at the heart of the film is used to subvert audience expectations. The movie specifically subverts the age old trope of the “nice guy” getting the girl as some reward. Although I won’t spoil the specifics, I’ve always loved the fact that the film doesn’t make Jane compromise her values or her autonomy for the sake of a fairytale ending. Jane has excellent chemistry with both Aaron and Tom, but chemistry cannot conquer all, and Broadcast News doesn’t shy away from this reality.
The film’s love triangle also helps to clearly illustrate its important message about the corruption of journalism through the juxtaposition between Tom and Aaron. In 2024, this warning has never felt more relevant. The line between factual reporting and shocking entertainment television has become nearly nonexistent, and the Toms of the world are certainly in the driver’s seat. In our current political landscape, it's clear that it matters more how you say something than what you actually say, and faith in journalism has become so eroded that the good reporting that we have left is ignored in favor of snappy headlines and social media posts. Watching Broadcast News is like watching the first bit of water leak through a dam, knowing that a flood is yet to come.
Despite the fact that it was very critically acclaimed in its time, I think a lot of people from my generation have never heard of Broadcast News, and that’s a shame. It’s expertly written, acted, and it holds up insanely well to time and scrutiny. It’s certainly worth a watch, even if you aren’t the kind of person who watches a lot of romcoms. This is a really special film that has something unique and important to say, and it deserves to be celebrated to this day.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
11/18/24
Full Review
Leaburn O
Like all William Hurt films, this was full of chat, whilst there was little gripping plot to keep me interested. Just a standard office politics drama. Found it well acted but boring. Watched on DVD.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
09/24/24
Full Review
John K
Why’d I go downstairs?
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
09/01/24
Full Review
Jeff M
I think this was the first time I really fell in love with a movie! I missed 18 months of high school because of a horrible case of mono at the time this movie came out on video. I was so smitten, I watched it at least once a day for probably a couple weeks. It was as perfect a movie as I had seen up to that point, and the three lead characters felt like part of my family. Hunter gives one of the great screen performances ever, in my opinion, and although the character was written for another actress (Debra Winger), you can't imagine anyone else in the part. The behind the scenes stuff is fascinating and seems authentic, the intelligent dialogue absolutely crackles, and this was the apex of James L. Brooks as a director, even superior to his Oscar winning TERMS OF ENDEARMENT. I still quote lines regularly from this film, and it will forever be etched in my movie-loving soul.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/22/24
Full Review
Donald A
The perfect mix between an art-house ending and an 80's romance, James L. Brooks' film "Broadcast News" is a true classic to behold. One could give Mr. Brooks an honorary film award simply for the ending, if one knew the backstory and controversy surrounding it. The three main stars, William Hurt, Holly Hunter, and Albert Brooks, contrive their performances into a surreal sort of being, acting out their roles to the utmost extent. Hunter's performance is the best in the picture, and deserves recognition for her hilarious ferocity. This film is brilliant.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
11/01/23
Full Review
John E
Broadcast News (1987) provided audiences with two impressive accomplishments. The most important being a tight, well written, finely directed, and superbly acted story. The second accomplishment was casting Holly Hunter in a role that would provide her with a break-out performance she was very deserving of.
Jane Craig (Hunter) is a high-strung yet remarkably talented news director. She works closely with Aaron Altman (Albert Brooks), a news correspondent whom she respects and trusts because of his knowledge, experience, and integrity. Aaron aspires to advance in his career but is held back because he's not as visually attractive as less qualified news employees and he lacks a confident demeaner. Enter Tom Grunick (William Hurt), a good-looking former sportscaster who is hired by the DC area network where Jane and Aaron work. Tom has been hired as a prime time news anchor based on his viewer appeal, not his experience or knowledge.
Tom is everything that Jane fears and despises for the future of the broadcast news industry. As profits become more important than integrity, the network places more value on style than actual substance and it seeks to elevate the inexperienced who poll better with viewers. Tom admits that he often doesn't understand the topics he's covering, yet he succeeds because he has Jane and Aaron feeding him information and questions through an earpiece. Eventually the three learn to co-exist, but their relationships are complicated when Aaron admits that he has romantic feelings for Jane, while simultaneously Jane is beginning to have a relationship with Tom.
The characters are well defined, and the plot digs deep into that period in young professional's lives when they are out to change the world and spend so much time at work that it muddies their personal lives as well, an experience that most viewers can relate to.
This movie came out shortly after the first 24-hour news network (CNN) began airing. Jane's fear of the future of news seems more real today than when the film was first released. We now have several 24-hour channels that label themselves as news, yet their entire broadcast days are filled with nothing but opinionated commentary and there's not a single real journalist in sight. In just the last few weeks we've learned that one of them (Fox) deliberately fed its viewers information it knew to be false, solely to increase ratings by telling much of its audience what they wanted to hear rather than what was true. This is a much more egregious betrayal of journalistic ethics than the staged tears that Tom serves up in the film when interviewing a victim of rape. A tear that would end his complicated relationship with Jane.
This film, its creators, and performers are all deserving of the many award nominations they received. It barely seems dated (ok, usage of VHS tapes aside!) and provides an extremely well crafted and satisfying ending.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
03/22/23
Full Review
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