Tally Atwater has a dream: to be a prime-time network newscaster. She pursues this dream with nothing but ambition, raw talent and a homemade demo tape. Warren Justice is a brilliant, hard edged, veteran newsman. He sees Tally has talent and becomes her mentor. Tally’s career takes a meteoric rise and she and Warren fall in love. The romance that results is as intense and revealing as television news itself. Yet, each breaking story, every videotaped crisis that brings them together, also threatens to drive them apart...
Acting
Pfeiffer's nervous energy vs. Redford's crumbling gravitas
Costume
Tally's power suits evolving with her ambition arc
Direction
News montages that feel like action sequences
Director
Jon Avnet
Robert Redford
Warren Justice
Michelle Pfeiffer
Tally Atwater
Stockard Channing
Marcia McGrath
Joe Mantegna
Bucky Terranova
Kate Nelligan
Joanna Kennelly
Glenn Plummer
Ned Jackson
James Rebhorn
John Merino
Scott Bryce
Rob Sullivan
Raymond Cruz
Fernando Buttanda
Dedee Pfeiffer
Luanne Atwater
Michael Laskin
IBS Director
Lorielle New
Merino's Secretary
Miguel Sandoval
Dan Duarte
James Karen
Tom Orr
Fabian
Fabian
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Originally developed as a biopic of Jessica Savitch, the troubled NBC anchor; rewrites made it a romance when Pfeiffer and Redford signed on.
The film's mixed reception partly reflected 90s discomfort with ambitious women—critics called Tally 'unlikable' for wanting exactly what Warren taught her to want.
US
