Ovarian imperative

Then She Found Me

Crit

Hmmm . . . consecutive postwork Friday flicks about women on the ticking clock side of 35 trying to get pregnant. Houston, we have a Zeitgeist.

But in fact, this has little else in common with Baby Mama. That is a pleasant enough entertainment with some yuks in it. This is a grown-up picture with grown-up problems and nastiness in it, and if you didn't think Helen Hunt had it in her, well, you were as wrong as I was. It's not only a surehanded and sure-headed directorial debut, it's a brave and unselfish one. Not only does she wear the lines of a real-live 40ish woman (a very skinny 40ish, but still), but she plays nice with others: most of the "now that's acting" scenes for to Colin Firth, Matthew Broderick, and Bette Midler (and good god, how long has it been since we enjoyed seeing Miss M up there?).

I don't know how much of this is Elinor Lipman's source novel, but I also appreciate that the romantic leads played by Hunt and Firth can be priggish and unforgiving, and that even when resolution comes, it doesn't come all gooey and uncomplicated. (The Broderick character is a bit more of a comic book character--oh, and another parallel w/ Baby Mama is a character with implausible sex appeal: c'mon straight female voters, even forgetting the character differences, would you ever go for Broderick with Firth?

Quibbles notwithstanding, a very good film by someone who may make an excellent one down the road.

Trailer

• The Children of Huang Shi--Oh, gosh, I don't know: interwar China, Reds vs. Nationalists, white Europeans getting involved. Maybe.