colette wilkinson 
 

"The Paper.”  A plain title, mundane even. But as the title of Ron Howard’s 1994 ‘’day in the life” inspired account of the workings of a newsroom, it works. Here we have a big Hollywood movie, with big Hollywood names, but it feels real.

 

From the moment Marty (Marisa Tomei) gets up in the morning, scratches her big pregnant belly and starts bickering with her husband about his coming home late, I was ready to take it seriously. When she informed us that, “you never really appreciate bladder control until its gone,” she clinched it. Delightful.

 

The newsroom of the New York Sun is suitably chaotic—untidy and falling to bits. A step ladder with wires cascading takes up too much camera time to be ignored. 

 

Henry (Michael Keaton) is duly dependent on Coca Cola. I will forgive them the blatant product placement. Show me a late-working office type who doesn’t have some sort of mild dependence on caffeine and sugar, and I will show you a liar.

 

Alicia (Glenn Close) is fittingly expressionless as the unpopular one in the office, though an unsung hero in the end. Stay tuned for a perfectly delivered line involving a bullet, a leg and an extra ambulance.

 

What I like about this film is that it binds the colleagues together in an honest, vulnerable camaraderie. Voices are raised, curses are fired, jokes are made at the other’s expense.  We even get a rather uncomfortable glimpse of Bernie’s (Robert Duvall) agonizing issues with prostate cancer.

 

More uncomfortable, however, is the characters’ tendency to cast open their legs and expose their crotch at any moment of revealing conversation. Henry does it following a conversation with colleagues about his new job offer. Alicia and Bernie both do it when discussing financial matters. I get the symbolism, thank you, but I could have done without Glenn Close legs akimbo.

 

On a more serious note, journalists beware, there is a cautionary tale here. 

 

We are drawn in to an authentic newsroom and we feel the exhilaration. Henry is high on adrenaline and caffeine, and remains that way. He works until 4 a.m., and the soundtrack trumpets to herald his arrival back at the New York Sun about four hours later. This man loves his job. But at what cost?

 

Seeing Henry so attached to paper, we can’t help but imagine him as Bernie in twenty or thirty years. Bernie is ill—dying even—in charge of a newspaper that nearly folds every six months (no pun intended).  He also has a daughter who hates him. Or rather is estranged: “I don’t know you enough to hate you”. All thanks to long hours at the office and Bernie’s devotion to the paper.

 

We see the beginnings of the same with Henry and Marty. Michael McDougal (Randy Quaid) has to fire a bullet into a pile of New York Sun papers in order to catch Henry’s attention. Given the squabbles that occur before the baby is even born, you find yourself expecting to give it six months to a year before Marty leaves with the kid and Henry can live happy ever after with his beloved paper. Luckily, after a traumatic delivery, the baby saves the day.

 

And now back to that bullet fired in the office. I said this was a realistic portrayal of a newsroom. Well, almost. The bullet made its point—a stake, of sorts, through the heart of the paper in order to let Marty and Henry talk.

 

Let’s not forget that this is a Hollywood film. However, for all of the action we witness in the 24 hours—the frantic chasing of a news story, the stopping of the presses, the unfortunate shooting through a wall—I would argue that it probably wouldn’t happen in your average day, rather than it couldn’t happen. Nothing in those 24 hours is actually implausible, not even McDougal’s bullet.  This is America.

 

Howard seems to have got this balance just right. A believable plot that’s not quite exaggerated enough to join the glamorized blockbusters, but takes us on an amusing, exhilarating ride all the same.