Then She Found Me
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Movie Reviews of Then She Found Me
Movie Review: Would order again
Summary: 4 Stars
I would order again form this seller. DVD arrived fast and in good condition.Movie Review: Betrayal
Summary: 3 Stars
After recently watching Twister again, it made me want to see what Helen Hunt was doing. "Then She Found Me" finds Hunt working as screenwriter, director, actress & producer. It is quite a lot for one project, which may explain why the film works only moderately well. In the DVD extras, Hunt discusses making the rookie director mistake of acting in your own movie, but defends it because she wouldn't have "had time to communicate to another actress." The result doesn't support the viewpoint. Hunt looks much better in the interview in the DVD extras than she does in the film. A director who was not directing herself would have made sure her star in a romantic comedy would look good. Even though Hunt has an Oscar for As Good As It Gets & even though I love her great talent, this did not work. There's a scene where Hunt comes to her husband in a negligee. While the negligee looks good, where were the makeup artist and the hair stylist? There was no reason for Hunt's character April to look so plain, particularly when Frank describes her as "a knock out."
I also love Bette Midler's work. This was her first picture since The Stepford Wives (Full Screen Collector's Edition) in 2004. Midler has two Oscar nominations for "For the Boys" in 1991 & "The Rose" in 1979. She's fun. She comes on with energy and verve, "chewing the scenery" as she describes her high energy style in the DVD interview. But this does not mix with the sad sack April that Hunt plays. Even when Hunt makes love, she looks depressed.
Colin Firth does a good job of playing Frank Harte who gets a crush on April. Matthew Broderick signed onto the film as a long-time friend of Hunt's and does well with the comic style. Ben Shenkman who was nominated for an Emmy & a Golden Globe for "Angels in America" in 2003 does a good job as April's brother. Lynn Cohen who has a small part as Grandma Carrigan in Across the Universe (Two-Disc Special Edition) plays a feisty mother. Unusually cast, Salman Rushdie who created such a controversy for his book The Satanic Verses: A Novel plays the doctor administering April's sonogram. John Benjamin Hickey who was in Freedom Writers (Full Screen Edition) plays Bernice's TV producer friend.
This film won the Rogue Award at the Ashland Independent Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Hunt speaks about how this is a film about betrayal. For me the film didn't work because Hunt's ability to direct herself betrayed Hunt the actress. Even with these problems, this is still an interesting film dealing with issues of adoption and parenthood, good for an evening's entertainment. Enjoy!
Movie Review: Bonding: Necessities and Consequences
Summary: 3 Stars
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
Movie Review: Hunt shines in mixed-bag directorial debut
Summary: 3 Stars
Played by first-time director Helen Hunt, April is a 39-year-old elementary school teacher in Brooklyn whose biological clock has been ticking so loudly it's been keeping her up at night. But that's just the beginning of her woes. Her husband of just a few months (Matthew Broderick) has left her; her adoptive mother has just died; and a crazy lady (Bette Midler) - a local TV talk show host - is claiming to be her biological mother (with Steve McQueen as her father, no less). Then, just as her midlife crisis is coming to a boil, in steps a conveniently abandoned father of two (Colin Firth) - one of whom is April's pupil - to sweep her off her feet, though he comes with his own share of problems as well.
Though "Then She Found Me" is not quite as shopworn and trite as that synopsis may make it sound, it's still an uneasy mixture of insightful drama and plot-tweaking contrivance. In fact, the Alice Arlen/Victor Levin/Helen Hunt screenplay, based on the 1990 novel by Elinor Lipman, tries so hard to be unconventional that it often winds up feeling fake. On the positive side, though, the acting is good (why have we seen so little of Hunt on screen since she won her Oscar fourteen years ago?); the characters skew a little older than your typical romantic comedy figures; the story ends on a tremendously sweet note, and there's just enough genuine humor and charm in the movie to make it worth a look-see.
One side note: the movie makes a continuity error by claiming that April was conceived in 1966 when McQueen was off in China filming "The Sand Pebbles," but later we're told she was conceived when her mother was at a drive-in showing of "Bullitt," which wasn't even released until 1968!
Movie Review: The Unexpected
Summary: 3 Stars
You would think that with Helen Hunt, Bette Midler, Colin Firth and Matthew Broderick you would have a hit comedy...guess again. I love all of these actors and actresses separately; but together in this movie, I have to say that it left me a little cold. I asked myself how this could be and I think that a major problem was casting; I just could not believe Matthew Broderick acting in that way towards Helen Hunt (unless he was still playing Ferris Bueller as one poster humorously pointed out); Colin Firth in this part was not believable and Bette Midler certainly did not come across as Mom.
I think Helen Hunt saved the day. April Epner (Hunt) is thrown into a tizzy when her child husband (Ben) abandons her and moves back with his own Mom. Hunt is left to find her own way; along that trail she meets Colin Firth (one of her student's fathers) and encounters or is more accosted by Bette Midler who we come to find out is April's biological mother. How April loses and finds love and all of the discoveries she makes about her personal relationships never quite amount to the self discovery she makes about herself and what she wants out of life and what she wants from herself and others.
The cast is great; but for me there was a big something missing. It was quite simply an unexpected let down. But for those staying in on a rainly afternoon, this is a movie which may help you pass the time (if you are for example in the woods without any transportation and cannot find anything else to do).
Not an awful film; but not a great one either - 3 stars
Bentley/2008