Then She Found Me (2007)

This film is directed by Helen Hunt, which makes sense, as she plays the 39 year-old "love interest" of Matthew Broderick and Colin Firth. Sadly, and no offense to Ms. Hunt, but viewers would have to be on drugs to see her as 39 years-old. In the film she looks much closer to 55. I would have enjoyed the film much more if the actor had been somewhat younger looking, and a bit more attractive. It's just a bit hard to imagine Matthew Broderick and Colin Firth fighting over Helen Hunt. Also, the woman she plays isn't the most delightful person, and I applauded Broderick's character dumping her in the first few minutes of the film. Much like I was happy Tom Hank's character was stuck on an island for years in Cast Away and avoided marriage to Helen Hunt's character. Lucky bastard.Anyway...the film is a chick-flick, and I watched it with a chick, who agreed that both the leading men would not be fighting over someone who looks like Helen Hunt, and especially not with her sour-puss, cheerless, sad-sack, basset hound attitude. Actually it's a bit of a boring film.

I really wanted to like this movie, as I like Bette and Colin very much! The story was interesting and should have been very compelling. So why didn't I make it all the way to the end? Because I cannot look at Helen Hunt without wincing. She is so incredibly emaciated it is painful to look at her. HELEN! EAT A FREAKING HAM SAMMICH. Or tuna.Colin Firth was wonderful for as long as I could stand to watch. His character is so engaging. He bounces back and forth from English proper and rumbled Englishman to frantic and too blunt divorced man who's a giant, gaping wound. Bette, as ever balances charming and obnoxious like nobody's business! Her character is a roller coaster and manages to hide her vulnerability behind her usual bluster.I don't know if Skeletor will scare off other viewers, but I hope someone, somewhere can get her to eat some damn thing.

When I borrowed this film from my local library I was hoping it would live up to the abilities of its promising cast (Helen Hunt, Bette Midler, Colin Firth & Matthew Broderick), and yet it took me a while to actually sit down and view it. Fortunately it turned out to be funny and endearing.I read in the beginning credits that it was based on a novel and it looks like Helen Hunt (as director), along with the screenwriters, were able to effectively glean the comedic elements from the story. The film's achievement is portraying the swirling emotions of its central characters without becoming too cloying or desperate.In terms of the actors, Bette Midler is especially memorable as a woman who fumbles into territory that for her, up to this point in her life, is seemingly uncharted. Colin Firth is messy and lovable, Matthew Broderick, pathetic and a bit lost. And Helen Hunt proves herself as a capable director while depicting a woman searching for her own sense of fulfillment. There were moments while watching this that I laughed out loud and other moments when I cried -- this amounts to some of my criteria that makes a movie ultimately worth seeing.

This was like a Helen Hunt ego trip. Oh, great I found a book and I'm going to make a movie from the book. I'll star in it. Yeah, that's what I'll do. Oh wait, I'll produce it too. Oh wait, I'll write and direct it too. Is there anything else that I can do? Nope, this is my Helen Hunt movie. And so she did.SpoilerI wanted to like this movie, honestly I really did. We planned it for a Frinday night movie, my wife and I. We got blankets and pillows and prepared for an hour and a half of romance and comedy. Nothing could have been further from what we expected. It was just awful. Her infantile husband leaves her, she meets the man of her dreams and blows him off to nail her "boy" husband in her car. And it gets worse and worse and worse. She wants to get pregnant and finally does with the man of her dreams but the baby is by her ex. Great, she's having the baby she's always wanted. But the baby dies. And all this time her real mother who blew her off when she was an infant shows up and Hunt treats her like crap. Then she treats the man of her life like crap and blows him off. She treats everyone like crap. And on and on and on. What a wasted night this was.