| Overall Grade: |
B |
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| Story: |
B |
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| Acting: |
B |
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| Direction: |
B |
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| Visuals: |
B |
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The Girl in the Bubble
by socallib (movies profile)
Jul 7, 2008
10
of
13 people found this review helpful
I used to really enjoy Helen Hunt's performance in "Mad About You": she always had great comedic timing and that smart, strong, witty character she played was very appealing and one of the great iconic roles for women on TV. However, sitcom acting is a whole different thing from movie acting in a hybrid romantic-comedy/family-drama: in "Then She Found Me" she's on-screen constantly and in a lot of close-ups, and her mannerisms and aloofness become much more noticeable.
In trying to sell the dialogue, perhaps, she forgot to connect with other actors in her scenes. I wouldn't have expected her acting to be the problem, but perhaps being the writer and also the director on this film were harmful because they distracted her energy. She comes across as very cold, totally wrapped up in herself, and she lacks any lightness or joy even in moments when she is supposed to be hitting it off romantically with her co-stars; her character April's smile is strained even during her wedding, even when she talks to children--though the refrain of the film is how much April loves kids and wants her own.
Maybe part of the problem was the conception of her character, who is going through a big multi-faceted crisis the whole movie, from not getting along with her adoptive mother to wanting to have a biological child, from disputes with her birth mother to being conflicted about her romantic life, and she doesn't care very much about anyone else's feelings. (Which would be fine in a Scorsese movie or Mike Leigh movie, but this film isn't serious enough to bear that weight or level of realism; it's still a trifle, no matter how grand Hunt might have thought the ideas in the script were.) But I think Hunt herself was her own worst enemy: her reliance on intellect, her choice to focus on April's hardness and glibness and need to protect herself to the exclusion of vulnerability, and her really pronounced habit of closing her eyes repeatedly throughout each scene. I know it's a habit, it's automatic, and it's how she expresses emphasis or hurt or makes a joke -- but she cuts herself off over and over again from whoever is in the scene with her. She needed someone here to be her director to encourage her to engage with her scene partners.
Also, despite talented actors in supporting roles (Colin Firth, Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick), the movie is such a star vehicle for Hunt alone that those other roles -- all of which are really important to April's growth, because the story is about how she relates to them --never get enough development. Broderick's role is completely underwritten; we're told that he's immature, but it's not very convincing. Nor is it convincing that he has any hold on her--there's nothing in the script about what brought them together, only what pushed them apart. And Firth's character is endlessly understanding and patient, to the point where he's hardly believable. Midler's character is the most colorful and risks stealing the show because she's more defined than anyone else, but we don't quite understand her either.
Probably the most disturbing thing about the film is that it tells women the only thing they should care about is having a baby. April's mission is not to find out who she really is, nor even to find true love, but merely to have a baby, and get everyone she can to help her do that. However, her mother's character, Midler, is vilified for wanting to have a career (and "a life") at age 15 rather than fulfilling herself solely in the role of mother. Helen Hunt has always played roles where she seemed strong and independent, and she does still seem that way here, but the message of the movie counters that. |
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