Then She Found Me | 
| Director: Helen Hunt
Actors: Matthew Broderick, Colin Firth, Helen Hunt, Bette Midler, Salman Rushdie
Studio: THINKFILM
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy Used: $4.74
You Save: $10.24 (68%)
New (39) Used (21) from $4.74
Avg. Customer Rating:  42 reviews
Sales Rank: 4566
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Ntsc, Subtitled, Widescreen
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 100
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: IMEDTF4947D
UPC: 014381494723
EAN: 0014381494723
ASIN: B001BEK8G0
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: September 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
A new york schoolteacher hits a midlife crisis when in quick succession her husband leaves her adoptive mother dies and her biological mother an eccentric talk show host materializes and turns her life upside down as she begins a courtship with the father of one of her students. Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 02/10/2009 Starring: Helen Hunt Colin Firth Run time: 100 minutes Rating: R
Amazon.com
Like all the most intriguing titles, Then She Found Me lends itself to multiple interpretations. Does "she" refer to New York talk-show host Bernice (Bette Midler, in a welcome return to the screen), the self-proclaimed birth parent who enters the life of schoolteacher April (Oscar winner Helen Hunt) upon the death of her adoptive mother? Or does the pronoun refer to April, who meets divorced dad Frank (Colin Firth) the day her marriage to co-worker Ben (Matthew Broderick) comes to an abrupt halt? The surprising conclusion to Hunt's directorial debut suggests a third interpretation. In adapting Elinor Lipman's novel, Hunt treads well-worn ground, but does so with grace and sensitivity. When Ben walks out on his 39-year-old wife, she fears he's left with her chances of having a baby. As much as she enjoyed her childhood, April would prefer not to adopt, and with the support of her non-adopted brother, Freddy (Ben Shenkman), she struggles to reconcile her warm feelings towards the awkward Frank with her chilly reaction to the slippery Bernice. Though April has a hard time imagining they could be related, the teacher and the TV personality both want children in their lives, so it's not as if they lack a common bond. When April finds out she's pregnant, further complications ensue. Though Then She Found Me circles Lifetime movie-of-the-week territory, Hunt resists the urge to smooth away her characters' rough edges, investing her film with the crackle of real life. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 37 more reviews...
worth watching-once January 8, 2009
This is a movie with good acting and a pessimistic story. I, personally, don't enjoy watching non-uplifting stories more than once. I really enjoy seeing Bette Midler in movies, but her storyline was odd and didn't seem realistic compared with the gritty reality of the rest of the movie.
 Hunt's Good....Movie ISN'T! January 4, 2009
Wow...what a jumpy, choppy, uninteresting story. There are many great actors in this movie that just seem lost. Hunt does a great job with her character, but the movie isn't strong enough for it. Broderick was just an extra it seemed, appearing in random segments. Midler's performance was annoying. Poor Firth should have picked a better script as well.
Don't bother with this one. This movie just proves the extreme excess that Hollywood pays for substandard quality.
Painstakingly boring. December 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
There are many movies that don't get made for a long time because people are afraid to take a financial risk on something different. There are other movies that maybe just shouldn't be made. This is the latter. I can't give it one star because it was well acted. The few people who recognize this title probably sought it out and are into a very niche sort of veiwer. They will like this because it is what it is. A bad Lifetime movie sort of offering but well acted and filmed. This movie just isn't compelling or funny or other. If Helen and the artists involved made it out of their own pocket and produced it as a labor of love, more power to them. They created what they were after and it is a work they can appreciate themselves. It doesn't matter what the world thinks.
Betrayal December 19, 2008
After recently watching Twister again, it made me want to see what Helen Hunt was doing. "Then She Found Me" finds Hunt working as screenwriter, director, actress & producer. It is quite a lot for one project, which may explain why the film works only moderately well. In the DVD extras, Hunt discusses making the rookie director mistake of acting in your own movie, but defends it because she wouldn't have "had time to communicate to another actress." The result doesn't support the viewpoint. Hunt looks much better in the interview in the DVD extras than she does in the film. A director who was not directing herself would have made sure her star in a romantic comedy would look good. Even though Hunt has an Oscar for As Good As It Gets & even though I love her great talent, this did not work. There's a scene where Hunt comes to her husband in a negligee. While the negligee looks good, where were the makeup artist and the hair stylist? There was no reason for Hunt's character April to look so plain, particularly when Frank describes her as "a knock out."
I also love Bette Midler's work. This was her first picture since The Stepford Wives (Full Screen Collector's Edition) in 2004. Midler has two Oscar nominations for "For the Boys" in 1991 & "The Rose" in 1979. She's fun. She comes on with energy and verve, "chewing the scenery" as she describes her high energy style in the DVD interview. But this does not mix with the sad sack April that Hunt plays. Even when Hunt makes love, she looks depressed.
Colin Firth does a good job of playing Frank Harte who gets a crush on April. Matthew Broderick signed onto the film as a long-time friend of Hunt's and does well with the comic style. Ben Shenkman who was nominated for an Emmy & a Golden Globe for "Angels in America" in 2003 does a good job as April's brother. Lynn Cohen who has a small part as Grandma Carrigan in Across the Universe (Two-Disc Special Edition) plays a feisty mother. Unusually cast, Salman Rushdie who created such a controversy for his book The Satanic Verses: A Novel plays the doctor administering April's sonogram. John Benjamin Hickey who was in Freedom Writers (Full Screen Edition) plays Bernice's TV producer friend.
This film won the Rogue Award at the Ashland Independent Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Hunt speaks about how this is a film about betrayal. For me the film didn't work because Hunt's ability to direct herself betrayed Hunt the actress. Even with these problems, this is still an interesting film dealing with issues of adoption and parenthood, good for an evening's entertainment. Enjoy!
Lame and sometimes yucky December 17, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This movie starts with a Jewish wedding. In the next scene a few months later, the bride's mother is dying in the hospital but still berating her adopted daughter for not having children. In the next scene, the groom played by Matthew Broderick admits having an affair; the next scene, the mother dies; the next, a woman shows up claiming to be the bride's birth mother; the next, the bride played by Helen Hunt, an elementary school teacher, sees the father of one of her students (Colin Firth) and it's LOVE at first sight; the next, she's sleeping with him (with his two small kids in the house); the next, she's pregnant; the next, she's making out with Broderick in a car in the middle of the street in broad daylight; the next, Firth is pissed; the next, she discovers the birth mother (Better Midler) lied to her; the next, she discovers she really is the birth mother; the next, she's having a miscarriage --- and so it goes, on and on, one stupid thing after another in this incoherent, unfunny, unwitty, uninsightful and often yucky movie. (I'm giving it two stars because I reserve one star for the really godawful howlers that I can't even watch to the end).
Here, none of the characters are convincing. Firth does his usual Mr. Darcy thing but seems to have the mind of a 14-year-old in the body of a late 40-something. Midler has the mind of a 12-year-old in the body of a late 60-something. Broderick, the mind of a 10-year old etc etc...
One good thing: Helen Hunt seems to be allowing herself to age naturally instead of doing the Hollywood botox thing. One bad thing: the various Jewish bits interspersed here for no good reason and without reverence for the reality of Judaism.
Two thumbs down.
|
|
|
