Generally implausible. Unlikely marriage followed by unlikely affair. April (Helen Hunt) marries Ben (Matthew Broderick), a Jewish boy with arrested development. She is almost 40 and desperate for a baby, and their odd relationship indicates lust for each other although they are unable to communicate, despite supposedly being best friends.
Ben leaves her and goes back to mother. That same day she meets Frank (Colin Firth) and within a few days is in love with him but she still wants to have sex with her estranged husband. Already neurotic and fragile, her adoptive mother dies, leaving April with a lot of emotional baggage to deal with. But this is not all. Her birth mother, Bernice (Bette Midler), has tracked her down and wants a reunion.
This set up is perfect for a farce and there are light moments. April initially doesn’t believe Bernice is her mother and gets pretty stressed about the near-stalking. Understandably attracted to Frank as the only stable character in this scenario, April says she is in love with him with in a few days of meeting him. Now, this can happen, but not with these two. This story would have been so much more powerful if their relationship had been based on simple, trusting friendship.
Hunt's directing debut is fine but miscasting disappoints. Sadly, despite being obliged to fake sex for the benefit of the sated voyeur, there is no on screen chemistry between them. Both actors are individually impressive but they don’t gel. Firth is always good but there is a feeling of weariness here, as though he knows these two characters would never get together and he’s slightly embarrassed about the charade.
Direction focuses mostly on the realistic – scenes in school, in the road, with Frank and his sleeping children, all well done and plausible. However, expecting an audience to believe that Bette Midler could be Helen Hunt’s mother is bizarre. Even though Bernice was supposed to be 15 when she gave birth to April this is stretching credulity beyond its limits.
As far as the story goes, Elinor Lipman’s tale of abandoned child and reunited birth mother is reasonable. April is suspicious of her mother’s motives, and angry at being given up for adoption. Oblique dialogue employed to create tension is overused so straight answers to straight questions would be welcomed.
The penultimate scene in which April reappears in front of Frank’s house, ostensibly to apologise for treating him so badly, would have been better omitted. Frank has been thoroughly decent throughout, scarred and sensitive, always kind to her – and yet she stands before him, not apologizing, but delivering a lecture on how she will hurt him again and again. Instead of legging it, he says lamely, ‘Oh shit,’ or something equally banal to demonstrate that they are so hopelessly in love with each other that they’re stuck with this unhealthy situation.
Hunt is likeable as April, and Frank is kind, but the eccentric Bernice is too brash for their sensitivities. Offered as light relief from the ‘desperate-for-a-baby’ neurosis, it grates. April is raw and needy, Frank is tired and muddled, and doing his best to cope with two small children. The last thing he needs is an angry, hormonally disturbed older woman. Everything is unlikely.
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