Directed by:
Helen HuntCinematography:
Peter DonahueComposer:
David MansfieldCast:
Helen Hunt, Bette Midler, Colin Firth, Matthew Broderick, Ben Shenkman, Lynn Cohen, John Benjamin Hickey, Salman Rushdie, Daisy Tahan, Tommy Nelson (more)Plots(1)
Desperate to start a family, schoolteacher April Epner (Hunt) is thrown into confusion when she is unexpectedly abandoned by her husband (Broderick). She gets another shock when she meets her unusual birth mother (Midler), a self-centered talk show host who's not exactly the ideal mom. At first she rejects her, along with the attentions of a divorced dad (Firth), but then she begins to find her life opening up in ways she had never imagined. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (2)
Helen wrote it better (if only partially) than she acted it, but the truth is that she still acted it better than she directed it. Only a moment in the form of Bette Midler in panties takes us out of the rut of boring problems of uninteresting and lifeless characters. But it is not a pleasant distraction by any means.
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The directorial debut of Helen Hunt is, unfortunately, based on the equation of having a terrible script based on an average book by Elinor Lipman. Not even the trio of otherwise very good actors particularly shines here, and we can only speculate whether it is due to Hunt's helplessness in a new role, or whether something completely different had an impact on them. In addition, at that time Helen Hunt and Bette Midler apparently had eating disorders, which could not flatter even such an obvious ideal actor as Colin Firth.
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