Mister D: Reporting Live from Nigara Where It Continuously Sprays
Colorada Springs Gazette
‘Then she found me’ a heartfelt story
By BRANDON FIBBS
June 12, 2008 – 11:11PM
If you’ve been wondering where Helen Hunt has been hiding these last few years, the answer is behind the camera.
Hunt has been indulging her passion project, “Then She Found Me,” a small, graceful film adapted from Elinor Lipman’s novel of the same name.
Hunt’s feature directing debut (she also produced, co-wrote and stars in the film) reveals tremendous promise for her directing future even as it succeeds beautifully in the here and now.
April Epner (Hunt) is a New York City schoolteacher who devotes her days to her students and her nights to her emotionally stilted husband, Ben (Matthew Broderick).
April leads a contented life, yet has an empty hole in her heart only a child can fill.
But April’s obsession with getting pregnant frightens Ben, and he decides to leave her.
When April’s adoptive mother dies the same day, the observant Jew can’t imagine God has any surprises left to throw her way.
She never sees Bernice Graves (Bette Midler) coming.
Claiming to be her birth mother, Bernice, a local talk show host and celebrity, wants back into her daughter’s life and is ravenous for the very information April would rather not discuss.
As Bernice, whose story may be too good to be true, tries to insert herself into April’s life as if she had been there all along, April finds solace in the arms of Frank (Colin Firth), the divorced parent of one of her students.
But will Frank stay with April when she discovers that she is, at long last, pregnant … with Ben’s child?
So often, independent films are populated with unlikable sad sacks you have little hope of ever identifying with, much less liking.
In “Then She Found Me,” Hunt manages to conjure characters who are no less flawed but always remain likable.
Admittedly, it’s hard to dislike Firth, who plays the part of an emotionally wounded man with boundless charm, and Broderick (aka Ferris Bueller) will forever be the quintessential man/child. Midler comes on like Robin Williams or Jim Carrey – a force of nature that simply can’t be contained.
But after this initial introduction, Hunt pulls back her scene-chewing star without once losing the panache that makes Midler perfect for this part.
Hunt herself is terrific.
She keeps her April plain and haggard. There are scenes in which she looks older than Midler’s Bernice.
Yet her inner fire, which breaks through in several key scenes, is never in any doubt.
“Then She Found Me” is a gentle film with room enough for comedy and tragedy.
Under Hunt’s deft direction, the film has a slight, tender touch.
In her first time out of the gate, Hunt isn’t interested in theatrics or flourish. She knows a solid film is the result of a good story and good actors to tell it.
It’s great to see a middle-aged romance rather than the usual pubescent drama Hollywood habitually sends our way. “Then She Found Me” recognizes that true love is found not in the flush of romance but in the stubborn commitment that comes after the initial twitterpation has worn off.
It wrestles with very real, familiar issues, but does so in a way that it gives hope rather than perpetuates heartache.
Honestly, without cynicism.
Now, that’s something I could watch a lot more of.
