Nisha Ganatra
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The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Directed by David Frankel
influenced Late Night (2019), The High Note (2020)
Characters Plot Themes Visuals
Similarly, Katherine could be a caricature of a woman, a monster akin to Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, but Kaling’s script and Thompson’s performance give this fictional TV personality real humanity, alternately buoying her with the swagger she’s earned with over 25 years in the business and burdening her with the weight of her mistakes.
While the presence of Emma Thompson raised my interest, I didn’t hope for much more than a cheap The Devil Wears Prada knockoff.
(The number of reviews of Late Night that do not mention The Devil Wears Prada is vanishingly small .)
Kaling has written a movie in the style of old fizz-and-gloss comedies whose passing we now lament, though its most obvious inspiration, The Devil Wears Prada, is barely a decade old.
Late Night owes a significant debt to The Devil Wears Prada (2006), which centers on the relationship between a demanding fashion-magazine editor—Meryl Streep’s indelible Miranda Priestly—and her new, fish-out-of-water personal assistant; it also shares some DNA with the more recent (and much less funny) Trainwreck (2015), starring Amy Schumer as a young journalist dealing with a mean boss and commitment issues.
My affection is also bolstered by the fact that the film gave me low-key The Devil Wears Prada vibes and that I would probably take a bullet for Emma Thompson.
A scene in which Harper and Lily come to understand one another while inhabiting each other’s bodies is as heartfelt as anything in the original.
Based on Mary Rodgers’ book and the classic 1976 adaptation starring Jodie Foster, Freaky Friday saw Lohan’s teen rocker Anna swapping bodies with her disapproving single mom, Tess, played by Curtis.
Where a lot of stories aim to say that mothers and daughters are more alike than they are different, Freaky Friday (2003), and even more in Freakier Friday, we see the differences highlighted and respected.
The story picks up over two decades after the original, with Anna Coleman (Lindsay Lohan) now a successful music producer and single mom raising her teenage daughter, Harper (Julia Butters).
…the 2003 film was a remake of the 1976 Barbara Harris/Jodie Foster starrer…
The novel, indirectly or directly, has been the basis for the body swap genre that includes movies like "Big" with Tom Hanks, "The Change Up" starring Ryan Reynolds, and the original 1976 "Freaky Friday" starring a young Jodie Foster.
If it reminds you of "All About Eve" or "The Devil Wears Prada," that's okay because those are good movies for filling time between catastrophes.
The cinematic pairing of a middle-aged female achiever with a younger female assistant and/or protégée has its grand-mama in that juicy 1950 drama about the New York stage, All About Eve .
“All About Eve” without the ferocious, greedy ambition — also fine.
Prickly and exacting, but also appreciative and generous, it’s at odds with the All About Eve treachery and rivalry narrative that is the more usual Hollywood angle on this kind of female dynamic.
…better than such recent Disney IP revivals as Hocus Pocus 2…
It feels like something that should have gone directly to Disney+ much like Hocus Pocus 2…
Think Hocus Pocus 2, for example, which found its way to streaming a few years ago and has already been forgotten.
So you get Hocus Pocus 2 a couple of years ago, and now there’s Freakier Friday.
It’s a movie about bucking traditions and shaking up the old boys’ network and a woman finding a place at the table — and yet for all its modern sensibilities and up-to-the-minute social commentary, the style and tone are reminiscent of light, last-decade fare such as “Legally Blonde” (2000) and “The Devil Wears Prada” (2006).
More Legally Blonde than Support the Girls , Late Night is content to be a fluffy, formulaic crowdpleaser with a sweet and uplifting message, and only has so much interest in reckoning with the depressing, nigh-Sisyphean trials of being a woman, and especially a woman of color, in a white-male-dominated workplace.
Take Broadcast News , mix it with The Devil Wears Prada , and throw it into the bustling world of late night television, and you’ve got Late Night , the delightful and timely new comedy from first-time feature director Nisha Ganatra and screenwriter Mindy Kaling.
More a strongly femme Broadcast News and less The Devil Wears Prada , new comedy Late Night offers a look at the challenges of working on a comedy talk show while female, and to hilarious effect.
Writer Paddy Chayefsky’s “Network” and writer-director James L. Brooks’ “Broadcast News” are two ingenious assaults that might come to mind.
Ganatra and her cast manage to pull this off with The High Note, a movie that will remind you of others - 2013's Begin Again comes readily to mind – yet manages to find its own voice, thanks primarily to its sympathetic characters.
Their bond is reminiscent of the affection seen in “Begin Again,” one of 2013’s best films.
(This boundary-breaking is aided by social media; it’s easy to imagine that, in a remake of “The King of Comedy,” Rupert Pupkin would have a YouTube following.)
I don’t even mean all of the real world nonsense that takes place every single day (I think I’ve read more blind items about Jimmy Fallon than I ever have watched minutes of his Tonight Show ), but rather in pop culture: The King of Comedy , The Larry Sanders Show , etc.
In terms of movies set in the world of late-night TV my absolute favorite has always been Martin Scorsese’s darkly funny The King of Comedy, which starred a warped would-be comic Robert De Niro kidnapping a talk-show host played to the hilt by Jerry Lewis.
Within 2025 alone we are being offered revivals of 28 Years Later, Tron, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Final Destination.
Better reviewed but darker titles like Thunderbolts* and 28 Years Later have struggled.
Growing up, I spent Wednesdays watching my favorite movie, Nancy Meyers’ The Parent Trap (1998), with my grandmother…
This time, it’s no different, only with some added bickering teens who are hoping to break their parents up (in a sort of reverse Parent Trap).
…starring in the remake of “The Parent Trap” (1998), which this film borrows from shamelessly…
…the unexpected cameo from Elaine Hendrix is a delightful wink to fans who grew up with "The Parent Trap"…
Two of her biggest roles involved twisted layers of characterization, with The Parent Trap having her play twins impersonating each other…
The real cherry on top? Elaine Hendrix as an eccentric magazine editor, offering up a The Parent Trap reunion to make the hearts of ’90s kids flutter.
At a hip grocery store, Maggie meets David (Kelvin Harrison Jr., from “Waves”), a handsome singer-songwriter with a rockin’ MOR vibe, and the two have a “High Fidelity” music-geek convo that dances on the edge of cringey-ness.
You never get the sense that she lives for music the way someone like Zoe Kravitz’s character does on the reboot of “High Fidelity.”
I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)
Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
influenced Freakier Friday (2025)
Themes
…made me feel even older than I did watching the new I Know What You Did Last Summer…
This sequel also makes the exact same mistake that the recent horror movie reboot I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER did by assuming we remember all the characters and bits that were introduced decades ago.
…it is low hanging fruit and is like a “Saturday Night Live” skit that goes on for far too long…
Vanessa Bayer (Saturday Night Live)…
Madame Jen (SNL’s Vanessa Bayer)…
Within 2025 alone we are being offered revivals of 28 Years Later, Tron, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Final Destination.
Within 2025 alone we are being offered revivals of 28 Years Later, Tron, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Final Destination.
…this Gen Alpha leads her through a dress-up montage akin to a cut scene from 13 Going On 30.
…the teenagers dress like Hannah Montana-does-Project Runway…
La La Land (2016)
Directed by Damien Chazelle
influenced The High Note (2020), Freakier Friday (2025)
Visuals Themes
There’s a hint of Ryan Gosling in La La Land present here and it would be easy to see Jacinto as a full-blown musical star.
The idea that as a white woman, Maggie has that extra little something to make black music really sing reminded me of La La Land , when Ryan Gosling’s character saves jazz.
Similar to Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (dir. Ol Parker, 2018), it’s never going to be the original, but the cast and crew had fun and I had fun.
The novel, indirectly or directly, has been the basis for the body swap genre that includes movies like "Big" with Tom Hanks, "The Change Up" starring Ryan Reynolds, and the original 1976 "Freaky Friday" starring a young Jodie Foster.