THEN SHE FOUND ME

Written by Alice Arlen, Victor Levin and Helen Hunt
Directed by Helen Hunt
Starring Helen Hunt, Colin Firth, Matthew Broderick, Ben Shenkman and Bette Midler


April Epner: I want a baby. I can’t explain it. It’s like being hungry or having to pee.

We’ve all had our share of bad weeks and I’ve heard numerous times before that when it rains it pours but yet that still doesn’t seem to account for what happened to April Epner (Helen Hunt). A mere ten months into her marriage to Ben (Matthew Broderick), he decides he made a huge mistake. The next day, she goes to work, a school where she and Ben both taught to primary students, to find that he never showed up and is nowhere to be found. Within the week that follows, her adopted mother (Lynn Cohen) dies and her birth mother (Bette Midler) makes contact with her for the first time. It’s no wonder the bags under April’s eyes are so heavy.


Hunt’s directorial debut, THEN SHE FOUND ME, begins so tragically but attempts then to lighten the mood with awkward comedy and untimely romance. The combination is a bizarre contradiction that just falls flat. It doesn’t feel right to laugh just yet as there hasn’t been time to mourn but we don’t want to mourn either as we only just met these folks. We don’t know how to feel or where to go and neither does the direction of the film. When the dust from April’s disastrous week finally begins to settle, the film finally begins to breathe normally again and finds a particular charm in its decidedly neurotic voice. Still, it is more unsettling than it is satisfying.


While Hunt may be overly sentimental as a director, she finds a certain harshness in her acting style that becomes the film’s most unifying source. As put upon as she is at this juncture in her life, she manages to juggle everything reasonably well by balancing between protecting herself, demanding what she deserves and allowing her defenses down at just the right moments and only to those who deserve entry. The woman deserves happiness, be that in the form of a new love with troubled suitor, Frank (Colin Firth), or by realizing her longtime desire to have a child, but her life only gets continuously more complicated, sometimes by her own doing. I would ordinarily want to hug someone in April’s position but mostly I just wanted to shake her.


What ultimately undermines THEN SHE FOUND ME is its own air of self-loathing. Hunt spends so much time trying to incite sympathy for April by dumping so many hard realities on to her at once but then punishes her when all she has done is try to keep her head above water. It’s hard to feel love for a face on the screen when the woman who put her there hasn’t made up her mind herself.

THE PRODUCERS

Written by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan
Directed by Susan Stroman

It should be noted right off the bat that I spend my life accounting with figures and such and that I have a not-so-secret desire somewhere deep in my soul. Yes, that’s right, I wanna be a producer of a big show on Broadway! Well, maybe not Broadway as they are more frequently interested in commerce more so than art (when is that “Apprentice” musical opening??). I also had the chance to catch the Broadway musical earlier this year, albeit not starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick as it was originally cast a few years ago. I saw it and I did not love it. There’s nothing terribly exciting about watching an actor put on a bad Nathan Lane impression (or in my case, an understudy putting on an impression of an actor putting on a bad Nathan Lane impression).

The film interpretation, directed by choreographer Susan Stroman is very loyal to the stage production and a lot more enjoyable to watch with Broderick and Lane in the leads. Stroman gives a refreshing taste of the classical Hollywood musical, staging some musical numbers on stages themselves (revolutionary!), some on sound stage sets that recreate the streets of New York and others on the actual streets of New York. The result is a lively, energetic film with many hearty laughs at the expense of the absurdity of the theatrical world and Broadway itself.

The one thing I did not see was this supposedly perfect chemistry between Broderick and Lane that helped the stage production amass a record setting number of Tony’s. As Max Bialystock, a middle-aged Broadway producer slash scam artist, Lane is slimy, quick and crafty. He always has an answer and his timing is on cue at all times. It became obvious to me how vital Lane is to this show as Bialystock highlights his strongest traits, a smooth liar who constantly fumbles but knows how to wiggle himself out every time. This will replace his role as Albert in “The Birdcage” as his signature. On the other hand, I found Broderick to be annoying and difficult to watch at times. To begin with, the character of Leopold Bloom is a pathetic coward, prone to overly dramatic panic attacks if one steals the remaining scrap of his childhood blue blanky. Broderick then takes this character and overdoes every movement, every expression, almost every line. Bloom may be an awkward guy by nature but Broderick himself looks uncomfortable and unsure how to make this character work on screen. As a result, instead of going forward side by side, Lane ends up carrying Broderick along with him.

Broderick works much better opposite Uma Thurman as Ulla. Thurman has never looked more like a classical movie star and together they generate some genuine sparks during an enchanting number called “That Face” in which the walls that prevent love from growing between an unobtainable woman and a bumbling, mumbling accountant are broken down with a dance and a kiss. Another addition to the cast, Will Ferrell, continues to enhance his character work with more depth and less Will Ferrell. As Franz Liebkind, the author of the supposedly worst play ever written, “Springtime for Hitler”, Ferrell is infallible, maintaining the caricature of a neo-Nazi musical nut job throughout without giving into his own self-indulgence.

Caricature is typical Mel Brooks and “The Producers” oozes caricature, from a blond bombshell who can barely speak English to an entire parade of gay theatre folk in costumes as cliché as sailors, leather cops and Indian chiefs. My issues with Broderick aside, Brooks’ incapability of seeing characters other than one he could conceivably play (think white, straight, Jewish type) as characters with actual personalities is what ultimately stops “The Producers” from selling. Hysterical laughter one minute, an awkwardly hushed theatre the next.