THEN SHE FOUND ME
THEN SHE FOUND ME |
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April's mother dies. She meets a new man, falls pregnant to her estranged husband and her biological mother turns up. It's a hell of a year. | score 2 |
moviereview rates films from 1 (unwatchable) to 5 (unmissable) |
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| Cast Helen Hunt, Bette Midler, Colin Firth, Matthew Broderick Director Helen Hunt Screenwriter Helen Hunt Country USA Rating / Running Time M / 100 minutes Australian Release May 2008 Official Site (c) moviereview
2006-2008
ABN 72 775 390 361 |
I
have never been one to put ‘good’ and ‘Bette
Midler’ in the same sentence, but here it is. Bette Midler is the
one good thing about Helen Hunt’s directorial debut, Then She Found Me.
Midler is the titular she, Bernice, a TV talk show host who walks into
the life of her biological daughter April (Hunt) the day her adoptive
mother dies. April has also been dumped by her husband (Matthew
Broderick), met a new man (Colin Firth) and the bio-clock is ticking.
Loudly. Hunt brings sitcom experience to this aspiring screwball / indie / serio-dramedy, stuffing it with genre staples from potential boyfriend to fake break-up. Then She Found Me is further crippled by out-of-control sign posting and predictability: there are no surprises from the first act on. We know April will fall pregnant because the story stops without it. We know Bernice has a true heart under her big mouth otherwise you’d cast someone else. Which leaves performance. Midler is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise lumpy and rather unfunny affair. An actress whose candid campery is well suited to the role, she elevates that which Hunt otherwise fills with a cloying sense of dread and desperation. Seldom has a comedy needed Prozac quite like this. The director’s gaunt physicality is also distracting but can’t compare to the inexplicable casting of Salman Rushdie as April’s obstetrician. As sight gags go, it isn’t funny. In some deep, dark corner there is an uproarious romcom about life, death and everything in-between aching to get out. If only Hunt had found a way to set it free. // COLIN FRASER |