First Hit: There are some very funny moments in the film and it was also a well acted dramatic touching story.
Helen Hunt plays April a woman married to Ben (played by Matthew Broderick), a man who just never seemed to grow up.
Helen wants a child so bad but their attempts have been fruitless. Her mother keeps telling her to adopt, there are plenty “of Chinese children looking for a home”. However, April insists on wanting to have the experience of going through childbirth.
April walks into the kitchen one day and Ben says he wants out of the relationship. However, they end up making love one more time. Later that day she meets Frank (played by Colin Firth) whose wife ran out on him, “because he was too much for her”, leaving him to raise both his children. In the parking lot of the school where April works Frank inadvertently comes on to her.
Here the film could have just moseyed along to a predefined conclusion. However life presents challenges: April’s mother dies, then she finds out she was adopted by meeting her birth mother Bernice (played by Bette Midler) who wants to dive right into a relationship with April, discovers she’s pregnant with her to be ex-husband’s child, and is falling in love with Frank all within a couple of weeks.
Again, there could be a smooth ending to this more complicated set-up, however real people get their buttons pushed and this film displays some of these possibilities.
Helen Hunt both acted in and directed this film. She is a wonderful actor and, in her directorial debut, intelligent enough to know how to direct other strong actors, including herself. I loved how the tension in her character was palpable as the film progressed. What surprised me most about this film was complicated and somewhat abrupt set up at the beginning of this story. However, Helen was able to take these pieces and stitch them together with clear direction enticing strong multi-dimensional characters from each of the actors while keeping the story line in focus.
Overall: The film got better and better as it unfolded and in the end it was touching and felt true.