The Next Best Thing

Seeing this movie is the next best thing to having your intestines removed with a teaspoon. I never was a big Madonna fan (Like a virgin, touched for the very first time...), but I never thought she could be THIS bad. I stopped caring about all these characters within 15 minutes into the movie, and the only people I sympathized with were myself and any other suckers who paid to see this movie. It's just plain stupid. It's not funny, it's not dramatic, it's not believable - people don't act like this! It's ludicrously bad and all copies should be BURNED.

The Next Best Thing casts Madonna as a free spirited soul (some stretch of casting there) who has a one night stand with an old friend and soul mate Rupert Everett. But that's not likely to happen too often as Everett is a gay man with whom she confides her innermost.

I think Everett's character must have been based on Roddy McDowall who was a confidante to many of the rich and glamorous and unlike that other gay man who did that as well, Truman Capote, McDowall never wrote any tell all memoirs.

It rarely happens in real life, but a blessed event came from that mating and Madonna and Everett decide to move in together, not marry, but raise the child as a mother and father with each leading their separate lives. It actually does work for a while.

Madonna really gets into the mother role and Everett's a great father figure. But he never forgets his social life with friends and lovers like Neil Patrick Harris and Mark Valley.

But then Madonna meets Benjamin Bratt who wants to get married and that puts an end to the arrangements.

The Next Best Thing while a sincere effort in its own way of showing the complicated problems that gays and lesbians have with the raising of children, their own children at that, it sadly degenerates into the kind of soap opera that one finds on the Lifetime Channel. It's not a horrible film, just will never be on anyone's ten best list.

I don't get it. The movie has a fairly good plot, phenomenal actors (okay, with the exception of Madonna) and an award-winning director. So why did it come out so flat and two-dimensional? Come on now... we can't blame it all on Madonna.

I was really looking forward to the release of this movie, but was so disappointed after viewing it. I think Madonna was great in "Body of Evidence" and "Who's That Girl?" is one of my favorite madcap comedies. But she just doesn't seem to bring any warmth to her character at all and let's face it -- her acting in this movie was about exciting as plain oatmeal. The other actors were great.

The writing leaves a bit to be desired in more than a few places. I think they could have handled it better, made it warmer in a lot of areas. I guess that and placing Madonna as the lead character hurt what could have been a sensitive and entertaining film.

Oh dear.

Don't get me wrong, I love Madonna as a singer and a bloody good one she is too. And she was good in Evita. But no matter how hard she tries she is still Madonna, and as 'Abbie' in this travesty of a film, she proves that she really should stick to the day job (i.e - singing)

I'm trying to be constructive, but this film is truly apalling. Admittedly, Rupert and Madonna are hindered by one of the worst, most hackneyed screen plays I have heard in many a year. Hear are just a few snippets of the trite, contrived, cliched dialogue:

"Being a parent takes more that DNA!!"

"I take sick companies and make them well"

"I miss him. He was totally me!"

The use of gay stereotypes is utterly apalling (I would be outraged if I were a gay man) the plot is dull and the characters are so thinly developed that there is no room for empathy. We learn next to nothing about the character of Abbie (nor do we care) and Rupert's Robert is simply a gay stereotype - I can't believe that he read the script and then agreed to accept the part. Perhaps he was feeling under the weather at the time and his judgement was impaired. Whatever the case, by the time the brat of a kid has his fate decided, you really could not care less what happened to him, Rupert or Madonna. All that stopped me hitting the fast forward button at regular intervals, was the unintentional, self parodic hilarity of this film. A prime example being the impromptu performance of 'American Pie' around the grave of one of the bloke's boyfriend's. Supposedly a poignant touch, this is unintentionally hilarious and has to be seen to be believed.

Avoid it at all costs, unless you have a fondness for seriously bad films, unintentional, self parodic humour, wooden, over-the-top acting, a wafer thin plot, characters who are little more than stereotypes and contrived dialogue. Need I go on?

Despite Madonna's lack of screen persona for most of the movie (she does have moments where she pulls it off), the film succeeds in probing questions about unconventional relationships and how they are viewed by society and the legal system. Even though I am a Madonna fan, I was distracted by her attempts to create her practically trademark pseudo-British accent without any consistency. She employs this accent many times, on and off screen, and I for one would like to see her give it a rest. Rupert succeeds convincingly, although Hollywood's portrayal of homosexuals as Judy Garland-loving, gorgeous Adonis-like creatures with impeccable taste and sharp wit, is getting old. Even though Rupert's scene as a flamboyant queen with large glasses and beret got a few laughs -- it only fed on existing gay stereotypes and took away from the fresh story that I thought I was in for. The later courtroom scenes were a little dramatic, and it is slightly unbelievable that in the six years that Abbey and Robert spent raising the child, they didn't think ahead and address the issue of custody with some binding legal documents, both for their own sake as well as the sake of the child. It was clear that both of them didn't want to keep living the single life. Even with its problems, The Next Best Thing is a decent film worth seeing.