Tom: You're an amazing woman. What a feeling, having you inside my head.
Jane: Yeah, it was an unusual place to be.
Tom: It's, like, indescribable. You knew just when to feed me the next line the second before I needed it. There was a rhythm we got into. It was like great sex.
A 1987 drama-comedy written, directed, and produced by
James L. Brooks. It tells the tale of three newspeople who get tangled in a
Love Triangle. At one vertex, producer Jane Craig (
Holly Hunter) leads her life in chronic emotional meltdown because of her obsessive-compulsive character. She's sexually attracted to but professionally repulsed by Tom Grunick (
William Hurt), a simple reporter who landed his job solely on good looks and charisma. He only survives on live TV because Jane feeds him everything he needs to say through an earpiece. Meanwhile, the brilliant Aaron Altman (
Albert Brooks) dreams of reporting evening news but his un-telegenic looks hold him back both from his ambitions and his crush on Jane.
All three share a slavish devotion to their work ? even Tom, ever aware of his low intelligence, wishes to someday cover a story without Jane's help. As
Roger Ebert describes: "After Hunter whispers into Hurt's earpiece to talk him through a crucial live report on a Middle East crisis, he kneels at her feet and says it was like sex, having her voice inside his head. He never gets that excited about sex. Neither does she." Indeed, it's only because their romance gets tied up in the workplace's questions of journalistic standards and integrity that Jane, Tom, and Aaron's
Love Triangle gets tenser and tenser.
Watching this character knot unravel is exciting due to both strong performances by the lead actors and an excellent screenplay by
James L. Brooks. He frequently shifts from comedy to drama but his dialogue always shimmers: it's hard not to laugh at Jane and Tom's good-natured flirting on the one hand, while when Aaron presses Tom on his ignorance of basic world affairs the discomfort hangs like a dagger in the air.
Broadcast News kept low profile but was universally praised by critics, getting four stars from
Roger Ebert and fifth place in
Gene Siskel's favorite films of 1987.
This film provides examples of:
- An Aesop: The film is a searing indictment of declining news reporting standards. Over 20 years later, it looks more prescient than ever.
(on faking tears for a news item)
Jane: You can get fired for things like that.
Tom: I've been promoted for things like that.
- Deadpan Snarker: Aaron, in spades.
Aaron: Can you believe it? I just risked my life for a network that tests my face with
focus groups.
(beat) I don't feel good.
- Did Not Get the Girl: No one in the movie winds up with anyone. Seven years later and Jane is in a serious relationship with someone else, Aaron is married to someone else, and Tom is dating someone else. And yet it doesn't seem like it was intended to be depressing.
- Dueling Movies: Came out the same day as Moonstruck.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Aaron
- Gainax Ending
- I Resemble That Remark / Worthy Opponent: Subverted, slightly.
Tom: I'm going to miss you... you're a prick in a good way... I'm sorry.
Aaron: No, I liked how that made me sound.
- Insufferable Genius: Aaron and Jane. Jane is aware of her pushiness, however.
Jane: (sincerely) No. It's awful.
- Love Triangle
- Pull the Thread: Used by Aaron to get Tom to admit he doesn't know the members of the presidential cabinet.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful!: Tom advances in TV news on his looks despite never going to college and not knowing current events.
- Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: Jack Nicholson.
- Smug Snake: Bill Rorich.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Tom in a rare male example. As a child he resents being hit on by the waitresses in a restaurant.
- The Ted Baxter: Subverted the hell out of. Tom knows he's coasting on his appearance. He still knows all of the tricks that Aaron doesn't know.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Tom pretended to cry just so that they could film his reaction and be praised for his emotional interview with a rape victim.
Jane: It made me... ILL.
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