The View Newspaper
Lipman’s take on the ties that bind
Karen Arnold
April 13, 2007

Elinor Lipman’s “Then She Found Me” had me from word one.

Okay, I admit it, a friend told me it was coming out as a movie with Bette Midler and Helen Hunt playing starring roles and I was hooked before I started reading. But the story gathered me into its wacky world quickly enough.

Think characters brassy, sassy, sexy, manipulative and looking-for-love, celebrity (the Bette Midler role, right?) and self-assured, tailored, quiet, fluent in Latin and teaching in a high school (the Helen Hunt role) and you have the polar opposites that generate tension in a plot that parades as a melodrama, but manages to make sharper points about mother-daughter relationships, ethnic stereotypes, public opinion and the morality of parading your private life in public.

You can try and write this off as chick-lit, but in the end that doesn’t work.

Page one begins with April explaining how adopted meant something extraordinary and wonderful in her life. Her parents made sure she understood they cherished her. Still, her fear was that her birth mother might appear. “…I slept with a light on in my bedroom until I was twelve, afraid she’d exercise her right” (page 1). There’s no hand-wringing anxiety here, but you feel the depth of April’s dread without any special effects.

When Bernice Graverman comes on the scene, finessed by a vaguely insulting visit to April by Bernice’s friend, Sonia, we are prepared for an entrance. But Bernice waits somewhere do

wn a “diner’s central aisle” (page 13). April tells us “I hated her within minutes” (page 13). What follows that initial understanding fits more what we expect from the friend’s patronizing and insinuating early questions.

Bernice proves to be self-centered and full of tales about April’s parentage that can barely be believed. She assumes April must have agonized knowing there was a mother “out there searching for you” (page 15). April’s common sense reply that, “she had no reason to think (her mother) was either out there or searching” (page 15) momentarily takes the wind out of Bernice’s sails — but only long enough for Sonia to start an exchange with Bernice that April views as just another performance.

In fact, it is page 116 before Bernice stops posturing and trying to force April’s emotional response to her. You feel, from this point on that their relationship may achieve a balance. You also know by then that April is becoming interested in Dwight Willamee, the geeky librarian at her high school.

Incidental to the main fireworks between April and Bernice, a history of April’s adoptive parents, the Epners, takes shape. Both survivors of the Nazi death camps, they adopt April and provide a secure — if conservative and slightly repressed — emotional home for her.

Vis-a-vis the Epners, Lipman comments on the social phenomenon of Holocaust survivors in America. In an exchange with her husband, Julius, Trude Epner thinks about her youthful vanity in Vienna and has a silent wish. But the war changed everything. She and Julius came to inhabit a world as survivors that cut them off forever from ordinary consideration in society.

They were marked forever and not just with their tattoos. Lipman’s handling of the Epners’ serious approach to their identities in this brief early chapter stays with readers to the novel’s final pages.

The serious issues of adoption, celebrity life, Holocaust survivors and finding love coincide with instances of Bernice appearing in leopard print clothing and making wildly inappropriate comments to Dwight or people on her show or in her life.

Every daughter who has wished her mother could be silenced or “winked away” when she starts to embarrass her, every woman looking back and wondering about the wisdom of earlier life choices, and every person who ponders how we can find real intimacy and understanding can find a chapter of commiseration or hilarity to highlight their situations in this novel.

It’s funny, but the kind of funny that occurs to you later over a cup of tea or reminds you that we all grapple endlessly with human foibles and desires.

We long for balance and a sense of belonging and Lipman’s characters touch us. In their pursuits we see ourselves.

Mister D: Topics discussed will be the writing life, a how-to to get started writing, the film with Bette and Helen Hunt, the release of the movie (currently scheduled for a Fall release), and her new book, “My Latest Grievance”

The Republican
Evening with author to aid Storrs Library
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
By DENISE FAVRO SCHWARTZ

LONGMEADOW - Northampton author Elinor Lipman will present an evening of entertaining dialogue in a benefit for the Storrs Library on March 31 from 7 to 9 p.m.

Coffee and desserts provided by Longmeadow’s Bon Vivant’s will be served. There will be a question-and-answer session following Lipman’s presentation. Signed copies of her books will be sold.

In an interview at the Hotel Northampton recently, Lipman said she will discuss “the writing life, how to get started in writing” and her novels, including her most recent, “My Latest Grievance” and her first, “Then She Found Me” which is in film post-production. Helen Hunt directed the film and starred in its lead role. Bette Midler and Colin Firth are also cast. The film is scheduled for release in the fall.

“I’ll talk about the film,” Lipman said, sipping skinny decaf latte. “It’s the thing!”

Written more than 18 years ago, “Then She Found Me” follows Lipman’s character April Epner through a period when her quiet and loving adoptive parents have just died and her birth mother, a brash TV talk show host, announces her existence and forever changes April’s world. The book combines Lipman’s deft use of dialog with characters who bring to mind people readers probably have met in their lives, whether they want to admit it or not. Though comedic in many ways, tough issues like adultery, loyalty, and loneliness surface in the book. Lipman’s good writing binds the layers of alternating emotion.

The author said that the film deviates from her novel in some ways but that Hunt’s changes make sense for the screen. Lipman said that she did not meet Hunt until one year ago although Hunt had optioned the novel years ago and the two had exchanged e-mail for some time before they met. “It was Christmas 2005 when I read the screenplay,” Lipman said. “I e-mailed her (Hunt) and said how much I liked it.”

“You have no idea how relieved I am,” Hunt e-mailed back.

Reservations for the event featuring Elinor Lipman must be made no later than March 17 by personal check made payable to the Friends of the Storrs Library. Checks should be sent to Karen Glass, 330 Merriweather Drive, Longmeadow, MA, 01106.

IndieWire
(A column titled “In Production”)

“Then She Found Me”

Helen Hunt’s decade-long struggle to get Elinor Lipman’s novel to the screen is nearly complete. Marking her directorial debut, Hunt also wrote the screenplay and stars along with Bette Midler, Colin Firth and Matthew Broderick.

Currently in post, the story of a schoolteacher (Hunt) who is found by her obnoxious talk show host birth mother (Midler) has fascinated Hunt since she optioned the book soon after winning the Best Actress Oscar for “As Good As It Gets” in 1997.

After bouncing from studio to studio with the project, Hunt brought it to Killer Films two years ago and the team of Pamela Koffler, Katie Roumel and Christine Vachon found financing and got the project rolling this past September in Brooklyn. “We were interested in making [Hunt’s] first film but it’s just a really interesting [project],” says Koffler. “It looks at the way one woman pursues happiness and fulfillment and what that means to her.”

Koffler also adds that with Hunt’s involvement people like Salman Rushdie and Lynn Cohen (”Sex and the City”) jumped to the chance to have cameos.

“Helen was a magnet to interesting talent,” she says. “She was fantastic with them in the auditioning process and obviously as an actress is really sensitive to that dynamic so it was a fun casting process.”

Shot in 28 days on 35mm by Peter Donahue (”Junebug”), the film is being edited by Pam Wise (”Transamerica”). Along with Killer Films, Connie avel is also producing. John Wells, Walter Josten and Blue Rider Pictures’ Jeff Geoffray are executive producing.

MTV.com
By Shawn Adler and Larry Carroll, with additional reporting by Jasmine Dotiwala

Oscar winner Helen Hunt has kept a relatively low profile of TV movies and Woody Allen flicks since breaking through around the turn of the century, but now she’s putting the finishing touches on a labor of love that she’s writing, starring in and directing. “It took me a long time to get it made,” she said of the drama “Then She Found Me,” due in theaters at the end of next year. “It’s a story I’ve loved for many years, and I finally got the thing in the can, so I’m cutting it now. … I hope it’s funny and moving.” Based on a novel by writer Elinor Lipman, the plot revolves around a 36-year-old adopted woman who suddenly finds herself overwhelmed by the desire to meet her biological mother. “She’s found by her birth mother, played by Bette Midler, and at the same time is ending a marriage with Matthew Broderick and falling in love with Colin Firth, and that gets all messed up, and everybody goes in the wrong direction. It is a movie about love and betrayal and getting your heart broken and putting it back together.” Very much Hunt’s passion project, the actress insisted that she’s giving this one everything she’s got. “I am really pouring myself into it,” she said. “I really hope everyone comes and sees it.”

Variety
Hunt finds cast trio for helming debut
Firth, Broderick, Midler are ‘Found’
By MICHAEL FLEMING

Colin Firth, Matthew Broderick and Bette Midler have joined Helen Hunt in “Then She Found Me,” the drama on which Hunt makes her feature directing debut.

Hunt has been working for eight years to adapt the Elinor Lipman novel. The Blue Rider fund and the bank ICB are financing. Shooting is just getting under way in Brooklyn.

Killer Films’ Pamela Koffler, Christina Vachon and Katie Roumel are producing with Connie Tavel. John Wells, Walter Josten and Blue Rider’s Jeff Geoffray are exec producing. Odyssey Entertainment is selling foreign rights.

Hunt plays a schoolteacher found by her birth mother (Midler) during a tumultuous time in her life. Broderick is playing Hunt’s husband, and Firth a man she meets through one of her students.

Alice Arlen wrote the first adaptation of Lipman’s novel. Vic Levin and Hunt rewrote it and then Hunt did the final polish. Hunt, who was last seen in “Empire Falls,” has a role in the Emilio Estevez-directed “Bobby.”

RTE Guide Entertaiment
12 September 2006
Firth and Midler joining Hunt’s film

Colin Firth, Bette Midler and Matthew Broderick are joining the cast of ‘Then She Found Me’, the directorial debut of the film’s star, Helen Hunt.Based on the Elinor Lipman novel, ‘Then She Found Me’ tells the story of a schoolteacher (Hunt) who is found by her birth mother (Midler). Broderick will play Hunt’s onscreen husband, with Firth playing a man the teacher meets through one of her students.

Variety reports that Oscar winner Hunt has spent eight years working on adapting Lipman’s novel for the big screen.
Shooting on the film has just begun in Brooklyn.

Then She Found Me (SPP September 2006)

Director: Helen Hunt (Mad About You)

Writer: Helen Hunt, from an original novel by Elinor Lipman

Producers: Christine Vachon Pamela Koffler Katie Roumel (Far From Heaven, One Hour Photo, Boys Don’t Cry), Connie Tavel, Helen Hunt

Cast: Helen Hunt (Academy Award® and Golden Globe winner As Good As It Gets, What Women Want, Twister, multiple Emmy and Golden Globe winner Mad About You) Bette Midler (Academy Award® nominee and Golden Globe winner The Rose and For the Boys, The First Wives Club, The Stepford Wives) Colin Firth (Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Love Actually, Girl With a Pearl Earring, The English Patient)

The feature film debut of Helen Hunt is the funny and moving story of April Epner, and her very unlikely path towards personal fulfillment. April, 39, who will be played by Ms. Hunt, is a schoolteacher in New York, who was adopted at birth. The fact that she never knew her birth mother makes her desire to have a baby of her own that much stronger. When her sweet but immature husband Ben announces one night that their marriage was a mistake, April is bewildered and devastated. Soon after, her adoptive mother, whom April has been nursing through illness, dies. With her life in disarray, confused and grieving, April is unprepared for the force of nature that blows into her life. Bernice Graves, to be played by Bette Midler, is a 50-something local talk show host. Seductive, npredictable, loving, enraging Bernice shows up one day, declaring that she is April’s birth mother and turns April’s world upside down.

Mister D: I had the pleasure of corresponding with Ms. Elinor Lipman today. What a nice lady! Anyway, I was curious about Diane Keaton’s casting. My gut instinct was that she was originally cast as Helen Hunt’s mother in the movie.

However, Ms. Lipman confirmed that this was old casting news, therefore Ms Midler is in as the mother and Ms. Keaton is out. She never signed to play the part.

Ms. Lipman stated that she is “completely thrilled that Bette will be playing Bernice, as is every living human being I tell, whether they’ve read the book or not.”

I would just like to encourage all fans of Bette Midler and the readers of Bootleg Betty to read the book before the movie comes out. It’s a great read and we all know how Ms. Midler feels about reading….

I’d like to thank Ms. Lipman for even taking time with me. Hopefully she’ll be a great resource for all of us during the making of this film.

Love, Mister D

Mister D: Set to start shooting in New York on Sept. 5, 2006.

The Boston Globe
Lipman novel finds way to silver screen
July 6, 2006

At last, Elinor Lipman’s fine first novel, Then She Found Me is bound for the big screen. Seventeen years after Hollywood first called the Northampton novelist, a major motion picture based on her book is set to start shooting in New York. A rep for Big Apple-based Killer Films told us yesterday that Helen Hunt, who not only wrote the script but will also direct and star, gets going Sept. 5. (Published in 1990, “Then She Found Me” is about a schoolteacher named April whose adoptive parents die just as her slightly unhinged biological mom, Bernice, reappears.) Bette Midler plays Bernice, and Woody Harrelson also costars. Asked if she’s gratified that the movie’s finally getting off the ground, Lipman allowed she is. “But after 17 years, you don’t start sewing sequins on your clothes,” she said. Another of Lipman’s books, “The Ladies’ Man,” has been optioned by Tom Hanks’s production company, and Oscar winner Robert Benton is set to direct.

There has been a lot of speculation about Ms. Midler joining the cast of “Then She Found Me,” directed by Helen Hunt and starring Diane Keaton, Helen Hunt, and Woody Harrelson. The rumour came initially from Variety, I believe. And this is how it read: Odyssey also confirmed that Bette Midler has joined the cast of the previously announced Then She Found Me, which co-stars Helen Hunt and Diane Keaton. That project, delayed from last year, is now in pre-production, with Hunt directing.

Being the cynic that I am…I never believe these things. Alot of times it’s to generate interest that someone may be attached to create a buzz. Fair enough. But it gets many of our hopes up and when it doesn’t happen..well what a divine downer that is.

Anyway, I got a little bit of news from Bette’s asst and she said verbatim: “There is talk of it but it is not confirmed yet.”

So what I do in these cases is lower my expectations, just like I’ve lowered them for men, theme parks, and our country under George Bush…I really don’t know how much lower I can go with the latter…I’m walking on my knees with my head to the sky now!!! But for all you handsome fellas that swing a certain way…I’m limber!

“Then She Found Me” was originally a novel written by Elinor Lipman an adapted for the screen, supposedly by Helen Hunt. On Ms. Lipman’s website she said she was very pleased with the screenplay. Check out her site: Click Here

For those interested in buying the paperback just in case here ya go:

Then She Found Me

Thanks to all those that alerted me to this. I’m really so overwhelmed at work I can barely get on here. Hope some of this info helps.

Love, Mister D