Then She Found Me (2008)

(2008 HOLIDAY TEAM)Released earlier this year, Baby Mama covers the same emotional territory but in much broader slapstick terms, while this 2008 serio-comedy is driven far more by character than situation. In this case, the protagonist is 39-year-old April Epner, a New York kindergarten teacher who was raised in a close-knit Jewish family and desperately wants the biological connection of a birth child before her alarm clock goes off. She marries fellow teacher Ben, an inarticulate schlub with a terminal case of the Peter Pan Syndrome. After a brief time, he wants out of the marriage, and at almost the same time, April's adoptive mother Trudy dies. Not even a month goes by before April's biological mother suddenly shows up in the form of the brazenly overbearing but genuinely likeable Bernice Graves, a cable talk-show hostess who is something of a local media celebrity. If life was not complicated enough, April also finds herself drawn to Frank, the single father of one of her pupils. Unlike Ben, he feels the same about April but is fighting his own bitterness about his own recent divorce.

Not only does Helen Hunt star as April, but she also co-wrote the screenplay with Alice Arlen and Victor Levin and makes her big-screen directorial debut. Granted she's more impressive as an actress than a filmmaker, but as a director and writer, she makes the most of a storyline that stacks the deck a bit like a Lifetime TV-movie. There are enough realistic surprises that take the plot off the rails in a good way. Looking gaunt and avoiding much make-up, Hunt is really playing a variation of the beaten-down waitress she played in As Good As It Gets, as she carries that same constantly pained expression of disappointment and looks about to explode during moments of emotional duress. However, a decade later, Hunt inhabits the character more naturalistically this time and with a deeper sense of vulnerability and haggard exhaustion. Perhaps to minimize any unnecessary dramatic risk, Hunt cast the other principal roles with actors playing familiar parts. Matthew Broderick effectively portrays Ben as the perpetually dazed man-child he is, while perennial love interest Colin Firth gives texture to the seemingly ideal suitor Frank, especially as he edges toward the breaking point in tolerating the sum of April's foibles.

In one of her increasingly rare screen appearances, Bette Midler gives a scene-stealing performance as Bernice. She lights up the movie with the character's unfettered sense of abandonment while gradually exposing the secrets that threaten to undermine her newly found relationship with her daughter. Other parts are played with minimum fuss Ben Shenkman as April's physician brother Freddy feeling put-upon for having a biological tie to their mother, and Salman Rushdie (yes, the controversial author of The Satanic Verses which brought him a death sentence from the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989) as April's doctor. Hunt provides the principal actors, especially herself, plenty of good, meaty scenes with opportunities for bravura moments, and they do deliver. It just doesn't quite come together as a whole by the end, and that may be that Hunt is so used to the sitcom format of the long-running series, Mad About You. The incomplete result is that some laughs feel a bit contrived, some scene transitions seem jarring, and some expected character revelations are given short shrift. Nonetheless, the dramatic developments toward the end carry the emotional impact necessary to make the movie truly affecting, and Hunt should be given full credit for a most auspicious debut as a filmmaker.

In a featurette on the DVD release version of THEN SHE FOUND ME writer (with Alice Arlen and Victor Levin) /producer/director Helen Hunt shares a ten year journey to have a film made of a novel by Elinor Lipman. Her cast shares in the very sentimental story of Hunt's devotion and seemingly endless charisma and abilities. The explanation for making this budget film are in many ways more successful than the film, a work the cast seems determined to classify as a comedy but a work that is far more a human drama.

April Epner (Helen Hunt) is married to fellow schoolteacher Ben Green (Matthew Broderick) and longs to have a baby before her advancing age prevents her dream. April was adopted as an infant by a Jewish couple who subsequently gave birth to April's brother Freddy (Ben Shenkman): April has always longed to have been Freddy's biological equal, wondering what it would feel like NOT to be adopted. April's busy life implodes: Ben has decided he doesn't like his life and leaves April, April's mother dies, April meets Frank (Colin Firth) a recently divorced writer and father of two children, and April is contacted by a man who can put April in touch with her birth mother popular TV talk show hostess Bernice Graves (Bette Midler). And if these turns of events weren't traumatic enough, April discovers that she has become pregnant by Ben and Ben is unsure whether he can handle the restructuring of his life to accommodate April. Cautiously April and Frank begin a rather tenuous courtship which is almost immediately threatened by April's discovery of her pregnant state. April and Bernice meet, exchange backgrounds, and make pacts to test their biologic relationship. How each of these characters makes promises that eventually damage each other and then resolve in unexpected ways becomes a study of the meaning of love and compassion among fragile human beings.

While not a satisfying story on every level and a film too cluttered with inconvenient editing choices, the cast is strong and obviously committed, and the story (neither a comedy or a drama but a mixture of the two) tests credibility. But there are some fine moments and the lessons in human behavior are worth examining. Not a great movie but a strong little small budget film. Grady Harp, September 08

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Ok, I tried. I really, really tried not to compare the movie with the book. I loved the book, a tender, poignant journey of love in which April, albeit unwillingly, learns to accept the difficult person who gave birth to her and slowly learns the devastating truth of her past. But Elinor Lipman says she does not mind the fact that Helen Hunt basically took her book and scissored away everything but a few names and the center plot of the book, and came up with this idiotic film about ticking biological clocks instead.

But I have to wonder, how can she not mind? This hash of a movie bears little resemblance to what it was based on, so why did Helen Hunt not just find someone to write a new screenplay about a woman who wanted to have a baby? Why did she take a brilliant story, with fabulous characters, and turn it into this really rather dumb movie?

In the book, Bernice is difficult but ultimately complex and suprisingly sympathetic by the end, but Bette Midler's Bernice is just a cardboard cutout of the same person. And it's a shame, because Midler would have played the "real" Bernice beautifully if she had had a decent script to work with. And in the book, April is a bit uptight, but not the brittle, haggard neurotic that is portrayed here. And while Colin Firth is, as usual, great to look at, his character is poorly written as well. The male "hero" of the book, Dwight, and his relationship with April, are so appealing, that I cannot believe these two annoying men and their shallow interactions with the main character are supposed to replace that.

I did give this movie two stars because I liked Salman Rushdie playing the part of the doctor and I liked the sweet little twist at the end. But the whole time I watched it, I couldn't help thinking of the wonderful book at home on my shelf and asking, "Why, oh why, did someone have to screw it up so very badly?"

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I didn't like this movie at all. It had a cast of actors that I normally enjoy but the way they were cast and the dialogue they were given made me dislike their on-screen characters. Hunt herself looks practically elderly and she is supposed to be an attractive 39 year old. Broderick is as whiny and creepy as everything I've seen him in lately. Colin Firth was erratic and outright ugly most of the time as if they told him to just act as angry and frazzled as possible. The actors only flesh out their roles briefly here and there and are cardboard cutouts most of the time especially Helen in the lead role. Only Bett Midler's character had any actual life and energy in her. She brought some fresh air, even some heart, to her scenes but it wasn't enough to cast off the gray that hung over this film. If you want to see what it looks like to have life dump on shallow people then watch this film. If you want to see a strong character push through the challenges of life and rise above their circumstances you may be, like me, disappointed. I do think this is one of those love it or hate it films and for me it was the latter.

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From the beginning of the movie, to about three-quarters of the way through, when I ejected it--I kept telling myself "it's got to get better"--it never did. There wasn't a single character that "grabbed me"--and at least two that finally caused me to push the eject button.

Does Helen Hunt ever play a role where the audience isn't glaringly aware that it's Helen Hunt on the screen? She whines and chews her way through every line of dialogue until the hair on my arms stands on end. She never deviates: A Good Woman and Then She Found Me--these are very different movies--you'd think she'd do something different with the characters (to fit the time and the place in which the story takes place). I've made a pact with myself--no more movies with Ms. Hunt. This one was the last.

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