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| This Helen Hunt movie has way too much Helen Hunt in it | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| By Craig Outhier, Get Out | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| May 8, 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Even in her best roles — the Oscar-winning turn as Jack Nicholson’s short-order paramour in “As Good as It Gets” (1997), the tragedy-tested lover in “The Waterdance” (1992) — the actress always radiated a certain brittle hauteur. But in recent years, that tenseness has metastasized into something else: defeat, disgust. She gives the impression of someone under constant assault — by a cruel spouse, perhaps, or a really foul aroma. Unfortunately, Hunt’s directorial debut, in which she plays a baby-jonesing kindergarten teacher at a painful personal crossroads, feels far too much like a Helen Hunt movie. It’s joyless, toneless and self-consciously bleak. One ultimately feels compelled to grab Hunt by the shoulders, shake her and scream: “You have an Oscar! Lighten up already!” Adapted by Hunt and a pair of co-screenwriters from the novel by Elinor Lipman, the movie tells the story of one April Epner (Hunt), a devout Jew whose faith is tested by a nasty one-two punch of personal tragedy. First, her mewing, boyish husband, Ben (Matthew Broderick), skips out just as the couple is gearing up to conceive a child. Then, the very next day, her adoptive mother (Lynn Cohen) passes away, leaving April with no family save her blandly supportive physician brother (Ben Shenkman). As if by miracle, two surrogates step in to fill the void. Frank (Colin Firth) is a British expat and father of one of April’s students whose wife left him for a life of globe-trotting adventure. Intense, neurotic and sincere, prone to spontaneous “walks” when the burden of it all becomes too much, Frank is the most complex, sympathetic character in “Then She Found Me.” The scene in which Frank’s pent-up resentments spill into April’s lap is some of the best acting the “Bridget Jones’s Diary” hunk has done. Simultaneously, April’s long-lost biological mother, a semi-famous morning TV personality named Bernice Graves (Bette Midler), makes contact, offering — initially — a cockamamie story about sleeping with Steve McQueen and having the infant April torn from her arms by a cruel and repressive father. That the weathered-looking Hunt looks more like the spunky “Beaches” star’s sister than daughter is puzzling, but not so much as the baffling, grotesque scene where April succumbs to her estranged husband’s nonmanly wiles. C’mon, Helen. Enough with the ugly. The Quick Hit: Joyless, toneless and self-consciously bleak, Helen Hunt’s debut as a director matches her brittle, careworn persona only too perfectly. The former “Mad About You” star plays a baby-jonesing kindergarten teacher who meets her biological mother (Bette Midler) and embarks on a love affair with a neurotic single dad (Colin Firth). REVIEW 'Then She Found Me’Cast: Helen Hunt, Colin Firth, Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick Behind the scenes: Directed by Hunt, from a script by Hunt, Alice Arlen and Victor Levin Rated: R (profanity and some sexual content), 100 min. — Grade: D+ Contact Craig Outhier by email, or phone (480) 898-5683 |
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