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Then She Found Me
By: Joey
Magidson
Helen Hunt directs
her uneven Then She Found Me
Helen
Hunt never struck me as someone that had a longing to sit in the
director’s chair, but here she is, directing her first feature (which
she also co-wrote and stars in), the low key film Then She Found
Me.
It’s not a bad flick by any stretch of the imagination, but it is
horribly uneven, and is never sure whether it wants to be a comedy, a
drama, or both. The two genres overlap quite a bit, sometimes even in
the same scene, and it makes for a viewing experience that is at times
far more frustrating than it should be. That being said, the film is
very easy going throughout it all and contains a wide range of
performances, ranging from the terrific to the annoying. All this
contributes to the unevenness that haunts this movie from the first
frame to the last.
Hunt plays April, a teacher who is having a very unusual
period in her life. In the span of what seems like minutes (at least on
screen) she gets married to Ben (Matthew Broderick), has him leave her
to move back home with his mother, has her adoptive mother die, has her
biological mother (Bette Midler) make contact with her for the first
time, start a tentative relationship with the father of one of her
students (played by Colin Firth, the best thing aside from Hunt in
this), and discovers that her bout of goodbye sex with Ben has gotten
her pregnant. What will she do?
The film is not on strong ground when it deals with the plot
and she sitcom like occurrences that Hunt’s character goes through.
When the film slows down enough for some character building moments,
that’s when we see the good stuff here. Not to hammer home the sitcom
thing too much, but what really keeps this from being something
memorable is the fact that most of it feels like something that would
happen in a television show, and that hurts the believability of the
film and makes it harder to identify with the characters.
The main thing that the film has going for it is the terrific
performances from Hunt and Firth. Their scenes together are the best
parts of the movie. They both invest their characters with far more
than anyone else in the film does (and perhaps more than the film itself
deserves). When they are together, the movie picks up. We want them to
be happy. Broderick looks bored during the few scenes that he has, and
Midler was more annoying than anything else. The character is pretty
much your standard issue meddling mother, and she does nothing to
elevate the material.
Behind the camera, Hunt doesn’t do anything flashy, but shows
a confidence that is admirable. She trusts the story, and while it’s
not that strong, it makes for something that plays like a very minor
type of Woody Allen movie. Quality wise it’s nowhere near Allen’s best
work (or even his moderate work), but doesn’t turn into the annoyingly
neurotic movie that it could have become.
Then She Found Me suffers from being the type
of film that you are almost forgetting about while it’s still playing,
but when it’s good, it’s very good. It needed far more of those
moments, but what’s there is a strange mix of compelling acting and
forgettable story. There’s nothing wrong with Then She Found Me, and
it’s a harmless little independent comedy with too few laughs and drama
that rings false, but unfortunately that’s about the best compliment it
can hope to get.
**½
/****
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