Late Night

Late Night (2019) is Nisha Ganatra's comedy-drama, available to watch online on iFILM. Katherine Newbury has hosted a legendary late-night talk show for decades, but the ratings are sliding and the network is already lining up someone younger to take her chair.

To fight off the charge that her writers' room is nothing but white men, Katherine hires Molly Patel: the first woman on staff and the only one who came up from a chemical plant rather than the comedy elite. Emma Thompson plays the host with icy sarcasm and a real fear of going obsolete; Mindy Kaling, who also wrote the script, plays the green but stubborn newcomer. The gap between them in age, class and background keeps throwing off sparks, half conflict and half unexpectedly sharp punchline.

Kaling wrote the Katherine part for Thompson before she'd even signed on, drawing on her own years as the only woman in the room. Real hosts like Seth Meyers and Bill Maher pop up in cameos. It's a warm look at the craft, at aging out, and at how the funny stuff gets written minutes before air. Stream Late Night (2019) online on iFILM.