Woke Hot American Summer

The season’s most laugh-out loud comedies are also its most inclusive and socially aware. Imagine that.

- Estelle Tang

Mindy Kaling’s meta, multilayered Late Night is a comedy about comedy. In the movie, which she wrote and coproduced, Kaling stars as Molly Patel, a chemical-plant employee who lands her dream job as a writer for Tonight, hosted by Katherine Newbury (a delightfully spiky Emma Thompson). Late Night is funny. There are jokes. But in a way, it’s also a horror film. On Molly’s first day, the otherwise all-white, all-male writing staff assumes she’s a new assistant. Once her coworkers realize she’s not there to take their coffee orders, they play a petulant game of “You can’t sit with us”—literally. She eventually finds a trash can to plop down on.

Meanwhile, her new boss might have her own stage and a Miranda Priestly swagger (Katherine doesn’t know any of her writers’ names, choosing instead to identify them by number), but we soon find out that her house is also haunted. Ratings are tanking; the network wants to replace her with a boorish dude who makes bad poop jokes; and a past indiscretion threatens her relationship with the only person she cares about, her kindly, ailing husband (John Lithgow). Even her vaunted career isn’t the summit it seems—after accepting a lifetime achievement award, Katherine celebrates by slouching into a booth of a nearby bar alone. Her shoes pinch. Her Spanx are cutting off her blood supply. Being the only woman around isn’t all that cozy, it turns out.