Late Night

Not only is Mindy Kaling’s latest “project” condescendingly preachy, it’s also painstakingly dull. A lot of the Mindy faithful (her super-fans)(hey, I’m kind of one of them, I’m actually a big Kaling fan. I’m a man, I actually watched all of The Mindy Project, and loved it!) are calling it a “comedy with heart.” A comedy with heart can work, but a comedy that’s so heavy-handed with its message, with all these “woke” social justice themes, et al, especially if it has a major lack of laughs, well, it’s going to fall flat. A comedy that touches on educational discrimination, racism, sexism, ageism, classism, nepotism, elitism, “the corporate food chain,” and “fragile/toxic masculinity”? Ugh! It all feels like a freshman seminar at a liberal arts college, not a fun, lighthearted comedy film. No one wants to be lectured to or lightly scolded for two hours. Emma Thompson seems miscast in the role of a late night talk show host and Kaling plays the same character she’s been playing for years now. Yawn…boring. But I obviously just don’t get it nor do I have a right to get it because I’m a privileged white, straight, cisgender male, so of course this movie is hilarious and not a bomb at all.

[R]