By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Helen Hunt
Starring: Ben Shenkman | Bette Midler | Colin Firth | Helen Hunt | Matthew Broderick
Country: united_states
Year: 2008
Running time: 100
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455805/
Michael says: “I love this time of year… when I get to catch up on a lot of movies that I missed at the theatre in preparation for nominating. Through screeners, DVD rentals and borrowing from the library, it’s a whirlwind of movie viewing, especially on a weekend like this where we got over a foot of snow dumped on us! This evening I caught up with THEN SHE FOUND ME, Helen Hunt’s directorial debut which she also starred in. I’m not really a fan of Hunt’s, and I always kind of thought this film would be pretty mainstream and sentimental. Still, it’s adapted from a novel by Elinor Lipman whose writing I really enjoy, and it’s always fun to watch Bette Midler, and I’d heard surprisingly good things about the film from friends who’d seen it. THEN SHE FOUND ME ends up being a surprisingly adult romantic comedy about adults. In one day, April Epner (Hunt) is left by her husband (Matthew Broderick), meets the man who she will fall in love with (Colin Firth), deal with the death of her adopted mother, and become (unbeknownst to her at the time) pregnant with her soon-to-be-ex-husband’s child. Top off that overstuffed day by meeting her biological mother (Bette Midler) in the days following, and she’s not quite what she expected. April makes a lot of poor decisions in the next few weeks, but most of them are motivated by extreme emotions. There’s a sadness clinging to April that permeates the mood of the film in a good way. The laughs are subtle, Midler is surprisingly restrained, and Hunt has a light directorial touch. The whole thing is surprisingly gentle, so it’s surprising when Firth character finally blows up, allowing his anger to leap out at April and instill a dramatic change in the direction of the film. It all ends well, de rigueur for a romantic comedy and an Elinor Lipman novel, but the journey there is enjoyable. 3 ½ cats.”
Barbara says: “This film about an almost 40 year-old female’s life crises (trying to get pregnant, husband leaving, mother’s death) didn’t move me at all. Helen Hunt and Colin Firth got on my nerves and I felt no sympathy for them.
“The bright spot was Bette Midler who took to the role of the mother who had given Helen Hunt up for adoption beautifully. 2.5 cats”
Bruce says: “Thank heavens for Bette Midler without whom this film might have been totally void of cats. Midler lights up the screen with a simple smile. It is the only joy I got from this film. Please Bette, find your way into a decent film next time. You deserve more than this.
“Helen Hunt plays April Epner, a Jewish neurotic married to Ben (Matthew Broderick), a childish self-centered man who has never outgrown his boyhood. He decides that marriage just isn’t for him (I suspect it has more to do with the drip he married) and leaves. April is a passive aggressive type for whom there is neither palliate measure nor remedy for any condition that comes her way. Yes, life deals her some nasty blows. Shortly after her husband leaves her adoptive mother dies. Out of the blue, April is contacted by Bernice Graves her birth mother (Midler) and famous talk show host. What to do? Of course April goes to meet Bernice only to misbehave horribly. Then she meets this dreamy father of one of the children in her school. Frank (Colin Firth) is inexplicably smitten.
“April fights establishing relationships with both Bernice and Frank. When she finally does get them going she immediately sabotages them. She is furious with Bernice for abandoning her and expresses a fear of intimacy with Frank. The fear of intimacy does not extend to Ben (who has unjustifiably abandoned her) with whom she has what looks like adolescent sex in the front seat of a car.
“Hunt, who was passable but decidedly non-Oscar deserving in AS GOOD AS IT GETS, is just plain dreadful here. Granted her character is unlikeable, erratic and irrational but there is no indication that Hunt has a clue about what goes on in her character’s head. The fault lies partly in the writing for Colin Firth’s character is also stupidly pasted together. Others in the supporting cast fare slightly better, but there is not a well-drawn character in the bunch.
“As a director, Hunt has no sense of lighting or composition, the presence of either of which might have made the film bearable from a visual perspective. Watching THEN SHE FOUND ME, I feel blessed that all the neurotics I have known are infinitely more interesting that any of the characters depicted here. 1.5 cats”