Raising Helen
by
Shari L. Rosenblum
Raising Helen, a clever title that would
have been better reserved for some distaff reworking of Friday the
13th, is instead attached to a formulaic suddenly-mother plot,
directed by the king of sentimental situation comedy, Garry Marshall.
The tagline--"Helen Help Us"--plays up the counter-image (and
foreshadows the film's heavy-handed church themes). Who (outside of
Paris) knew the name Helen could be so evocative?
Supported
by an appealing cast of adequate gifts, and fleshed out with all of
the requisite clichés, Raising Helen tells
the story of a sexy, swinging single with a prodigious lovelife who
inherits a ready-made family and discovers that true fulfillment comes
from choosing motherhood above all. A Virginia Slims moment just ripe
for the season of celebrating mom.
Kate Hudson plays the eponymous Helen, the easygoing baby sister of
Felicity Huffman's Lindsay (in too small a role) and Joan Cusack's Jenny
(typecast, but to perfection, as always), and cool conspiratorial
aunt to their children. With a ready smile and an innocently mischievous
air, the film paints her irrepressible -- the only-in-a-movie New York
party girl, with the only-in-a-movie New York job. She's got hot contacts,
disposable income and a hook that will get her into any place in town.
And then tragedy strikes, both literally and figuratively: much to wise
suburban dorkmom Jenny's dismay, Helen becomes guardian to Lindsay's
three children.
What
follows is paint-by-numbers. Mourning creates moments of bonding.
Helen gives in to the call of the bridge-and-tunnel rent and moves from
Manhattan to Astoria, Queens, discovers her otherwise-to-be-emulated
boss (Helen Mirren doing her best Cruella Deville) does not deal so
well with Helen's helpers, and finds all kinds of salvation in the Lutheran
school down the block with the bells that ring out epiphanies whenever
the story calls for it. Angels here get wings galore. It turns out,
in fact, that what was true for Ginger Rogers (in Bachelor Mother)
and true for Diane Keaton (in Baby Boom) remains true
for Ms. Hudson's Helen: all a woman really needs to catch the perfect,
loving man is to become an unwitting adoptive not-yet-competent mom.
But don't let me give the plot away..suffice it to say that John Corbett,
turning 43 this week, is still wooing the American housewife with the
fantasy of the sensitive male. This time, though, he almost even persuaded
me.
Raising
Helen offers nothing you haven't seen before--but as long
as that whole death premise (oddly echoed with a subplot about a turtle
named Irwin that I think PETA should look into) doesn't upset you, there's
nothing unpleasant in seeing it again. With bit contributions from reliable
Marshall favorites adding to the mix (Hector Elizondo, charming as ever,
and Larry Miller, brief but fine-tuned), it really is just a story about
growing up. About learning what to do when a problem comes along. About
whipping life into shape, shaping up, getting straight, going forward,
and moving ahead. In some ways, it's even lyrical.
Less lyrical, but equally forgivable, the meet-cute
lawyer film of the season, Laws of Attraction, boasts
fair performances from fine-looking actors in a screenplay that wastes
no time on fresh or original concepts. But the concepts it borrows are
not truly those of the classic Adam's Rib, to
which the film publicity may lay claim, and against which critical mass
has compared it unfavorably. Though male and female lawyers in love
sit on opposite sides of the courtroom in both films, Laws
of Attraction is not a comedically philosophical commentary
on the difference between the sexes; nor does it aspire to be one. It's
a romantic comedy in three acts, plain and simple: attract-repel, repel,
attract. And for what it lacks in wit--
if
wit it lacks--it has in gumption. Director Peter Howitt took a risk,
that's certain. But there's something delightful in real grown-ups --
a man and woman (gasp) over 40 -- being given something to do other
than exchange hateful glances across the dinner table or chaste kisses
at the door, or to serve as foils for vapid teens in various states
of bratdom.
Compared wrongly, but to their disadvantage, to Hepburn and Tracy (and
who wouldn't be at a disadvantage there?), Julianne Moore and Pierce
Brosnan play top New York divorce lawyers -- Audrey Woods, the prissy,
proper, well-dressed perfectionist, and Daniel Rafferty, the mock-careless,
rumpled courtroom stud -- who must ride out the push me-pull you faux
obstacles of the rom-com slow build before they can get together and
comfort us in the knowledge that all's right with the world again. When
the rift between a rock star and his up-and-coming designer wife (Michael
Sheen and Parker Posey, having a blast hamming it up) pits them against
each other, and a disputed property in Ireland throws them in each other's
laps -- uneuphemistically speaking -- it's all just a matter of time.
It
is, no doubt, easy to fault the film: borrowed at its best, with situations
achingly forced, repartee between Moore and Brosnan that doesn't quite
sparkle, and writing by Aline Brosh McKenna that doesn't quite catch the
quick-timed mood of such things. But the personalities stand on their
own. Moore and Brosnan are awkwardly comic, but touchingly so: straitlaced
echo of the pop icons they represent, their clients the ids to their characters'
superegos. If sex comes more easily to them than love, alcohol more a
help to the one than the other, they are adults, and it fits in their
game. I've read there was no chemistry between them, but I disagree; I
felt the bubbles. Perhaps because I wanted to, but I believed the pushes
and I believed the pulls. And I found it a pleasure to see the actors
in characters so uncharacteristically off-balance...
©2004 Shari L. Rosenblum
CineScene
