Then She Found Me

Review by Anthony Morris

Helen Hunt has never been afraid of looking plain in her feature film roles, but in this – her directorial debut – her haggard appearance is almost shocking. 

To be fair, her character has much to be haggard about: her adoptive mother dies, her husband (Matthew Broderick) leaves her and her talk show host birth mother (Bette Midler) sweeps into her life within the film's first twenty minutes, and things only get more complicated from there.

At least she can see Colin Firth (as the hunky father of one of her students) coming: the discovery that she's pregnant by her now-gone husband really should be too much for one film to handle even without Midler hovering around doing everything but making jazz hands to grab our attention. 

The fact that this admittedly uneven comedy does manage to hold together is a testimony to Hunt's abilities as a director, though the way it never really becomes anything more than a mildly funny, occasionally interesting family saga displays her limitations.

Usually actors-turned-directors get great performances out of their casts, but everyone here is playing things strictly according to form. Hunt herself is the exception: she alone comes across as a real person stuck in a crowd of likable cliches, and her performance is pretty much the sole reason to check this uneven film out.

3 out of 5

Then She Found Me
Australian release: 15th May, 2008
Cast: Helen Hunt, Colin Firth, Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick
Director: Helen Hunt

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