Mister D: Still taking a sabbatical, but I thought this was news you’d want to hear. Hopefully will see you BetteHeads soon. Take care of yourselves.
Dear Friends,
THEN SHE FOUND ME was screened Friday night (9/7) at the Toronto Film Festival, and my spies tell me: standing ovation. It sold the same night to a distributor, detailed below in the company’s press release (i.e. Varietyspeak). No release date, but will of course keep you posted.
ThinkFilm nabs ‘She Found Me’
Helen Hunt’s directorial debut sold in Toronto
Helen Hunt’s directorial debut, “Then She Found Me,” sold to ThinkFilm in the first high-profile bidding action of the Toronto Film Festival.
The Weinstein Co. and Lionsgate were also in the running.
It is expected to be one of Think’s most aggressive releases to date.
The pact was firmed up overnight Friday, with a dinner hosted by CAA, which reps Hunt and the film, seeing drop-ins by bidders including Harvey Weinstein.
“Then She Found Me,” based on a popular novel by Elinor Lipman, stars Hunt, Bette Midler, Colin Firth, and Matthew Broderick.
“Then She Found Me” Review
TIFF Films And Schedules
Michèle Maheux
Country: USA
Year: 2007
Language: English
Runtime: 100 minutes
Format: Colour/35mm
Rating: PG
Cast & Crew
Production Company: Killer Films
Executive Producer: Ralph Kamp, Louise Goodsill, Chip Signore
Producer: Pamela Koffler, Katie Roumel, Christine Vachon, Connie Tavel, Helen Hunt
Screenplay: Helen Hunt, Vic Levin, Alice Arlen, based on the novel by Elinor Lipman
Cinematographer: Peter Donahue
Editor: Pam Wise
Production Designer: Stephen Beatrice
Sound: Ken Ishii
Music: David Mansfield
Principal Cast: Helen Hunt, Bette Midler, Colin Firth, Matthew Broderick
Film Description and Director Biography
Helen Hunt both stars in and makes her debut in the director’s chair with Then She Found Me, a very funny and deeply moving story about the way we create families both by blood and by choice.
April Epner (Hunt) is thirty-nine years old. Her biological clock is not so much ticking as sounding an alarm; her charming but immature husband, Ben (Matthew Broderick), decides their recent marriage is a mistake; and her ailing adoptive mother, whom April has been nursing through her illness, dies. As if this weren’t enough to deal with, a brassy, overbearing local talk-show host named Bernice Graves (a scream of a turn from Bette Midler) shows up out of the blue, announcing herself as April’s biological mother. And she has incredible news: April is the result of a one-night stand Bernice had with Steve McQueen nearly forty years ago.
Devastated on the one hand and bewildered on the other, April finds solace from her rapidly unravelling life in a growing relationship with Frank (Colin Firth), a handsome, warm and suddenly single dad whose wife recently abandoned him and their children. As this new relationship blossoms, April’s general state of confusion gets considerably worse when she finds out that she is pregnant.
Hunt is wonderful as the gentle, determined April, who battles through emotional minefields in order to find herself at peace with the world. As the boisterous Ben, Broderick is all boyish charm, while Firth captures Frank’s stiff upper lip magnificently. And Midler displays characteristic bombast as Bernice, a force of nature who gusts into April’s life and throws it into disarray. Her larger-than-life presence forces April to question her neat, self-made identity, bringing up spectres of the past she had long learned to live without. With Then She Found Me, Hunt combines her glowing screen presence with impressive directorial finesse, marking a new high in an already accomplished career.
Love,
Mister D
This is very exciting! I hope momentum keeps building for this and that it gets into theatre’s soon. Hopefully this will also be inspiration for Bette to be in more movies.