Helen Hunt shines as mom wannabe

Rob Thomas — 8/12/2008 9:56 am

Much has been made of the fact that Helen Hunt looks her age in "Then She Found Me" rather than glamming herself up with a radical makeover or flattering lighting (forget about Botox). "Gaunt" and "haggard" seems to be the prevailing consensus among critics about her appearance.

You know how she looks? She looks like an attractive 39-year-old schoolteacher who doesn't seem particularly excited about the next 39 years, which is what she plays in "Then She Found Me." The fact that she actually has -- gasp! -- laugh lines around her mouth makes her character more believable, and Hunt remains a gifted and authentic actress when given the right material.

"Found Me" is Hunt's directorial debut, but she also co-wrote and co-produced the film. It's a romantic "dramedy" that treads some familiar ground, but does so smartly and thoughtfully. The characters come across as real people who can toss out clever repartee.

Hunt plays April Epner, whose yearning to get pregnant is fueled and complicated by the fact that she herself was adopted. The closest April comes to having a child is dealing with her big baby of a husband Ben (Matthew Broderick), who leaves her after about a year of marriage.

April starts up a sweet relationship with Frank (Colin Firth), the divorced father of one of her students. But things get complicated when her birth mother, a local television personality named Bernice (Bette Midler), shows up and tries to rekindle a maternal relationship. How does April deal with it? How would you deal with it if you found out Bette Midler was your mom?

Middle-aged romance, baby blues, dealing with long-lost parents -- "Then She Found Me" tries to pull a lot of fairly shopworn plot elements into one film, and at times the film seems to sag under the effort to keep them all in play. It doesn't help that, in some of the more complex scenes, Hunt proves to be only a serviceable director, not really putting a visual stamp on her film. There also are a couple of moments when Hunt's "Mad About You" sitcom roots betray her, such as a silly scene where April tries to steal a strand of Bernice's hair for DNA testing.

But when the camera stops and focuses on two characters in conversation, as it does often, "Then She Found Me" is awfully good. Hunt is clearly an actor's director, getting subtle and lived-in performances from all her actors. Midler dials down her usual foghorn style here to nice effect, while Firth, who has had some experience playing Mr. Right, gets to bring some effective shadings to his nice-guy dad character.

And Hunt, too rare a figure in movies these days, hits the perfect tone for April in every scene, balancing her natural empathy with her increasingly panicked focus on finding happiness before her biological clock runs out. She has a great speech late in the movie where she declares her love for Frank, but it's not movie love -- it's flawed, second-hand, sometimes hurtful, real-world kind of love.

When so many romantic comedies feel false at every turn, this kind of honest love story can be very appealing, like a dynamite set of laugh lines.

THEN SHE FOUND ME

Three stars

Stars: Helen Hunt, Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick

Rated: R for language and some sexual content

How long? 1:40

Where? Sundance

For fans of: "As Good As It Gets," "In Her Shoes," "Terms of Endearment"

Rob Thomas — 8/12/2008 9:56 am