The Next Best Thing

Rating:
Summary: Madonna as a Yoga Instructor Sporting a British Accent = BAD
Review: Now you'd think that by putting director John Schlesinger and Rupert Everett together something interesting would transpire--that is until you realize that Madonna's been added to the mix and therefore completely sinks an already vapid storyline even further. Unfortunately, it's not so bad that it's good--it's just bad. Avoid this boring homophobic mess at all costs.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad FOR a Madonna movie
Review: Yes, it's not bad for a Madonna movie. Doesn't say much, right? Well, I don't believe it deserves ALL (but some) of the flack it has received since it's release. The script is a bit sloppy. The acting is subpar (even Rupert can't carry a decent performance). But, it's camp as hell! What else can you expect from something Madonna's involved in? This is for the obsessive collector. For the rest, Blockbuster may be the way to go.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable movie especially Rupert Everett and Benjamin Bratt
Review: I really enjoyed this movie. If you want a feel good movie and like happy endings, then watch this movie. It also helps to have Rupert Everett and Benjamin Bratt to look at too.

Rating:
Summary: It's good if you love Madonna
Review: I'm a big fan of Madonna. So, of course, I had to see this movie. When I went to rent it I looked in the drama section. I couldn't find it. I asked one of the workers there and she said to look in the comedy section! Now I have to admit, "The Next Best Thing" did have a little bit of comedy in it, but I would consider it more of a "drama." Well, as for the movie itself it was good. I won't call it excellent, but it could've been. The ending was good. So, "The Next Best Thing" overall rates a 4 out of 5.

(Oh yes, also: Madonna CAN act!)

Rating:
Summary: Rupert Everett is the Best Thing!
Review: For being a Madonna film this movie is quite decent. It is not that bad. I actually liked this movie and not just because I am a Madonna fan. This is actually in my opinion the first decent and nice movie that Madonna has done since her 1987 Who's That Girl. I think that The Next Best Thing is a much better and more enjoyable movie to watch than the boring Evita for which so much cammotion was made over it and even won Madonna an award.
Being that this is a Madonna film The Next Best Thing is a very pleasant movie to watch with the whole family. It is a movie that the whole family can sit together and enjoy watching. The movie is clean and deals with a modern day issue that focuses on alternative family situations. Both Rupert Everett and Madonna give good performances though Madonna's acting skills could be improved. Madonna gives a reasonably well performance that eludes her rather [bad] acting skills. In some scenes Madonna looks like she is acting, her movements are stiff, but manages to get by with an average performance. The real highlight of the film is the handsome Rupert Everett. He gives a wonderful performance and one which makes you sympathize with his character in the film and love him. Rupert Everett is the Best Thing in the Next Best Thing. A nice and pleasant movie to watch.

Rating:
Summary: Could be better
Review: Three things I don't understand about this movie:
1: Madonna's acting. What's with that half-accent, then full-on at the beginning of the movie? Twisted.
2: The rest of it, from about 3/4 on. "He's not your son"? I don't think it should have been like that. How could she forget that she used to screw that Kevin guy every night? I think it should have gone properly. The kid should've been Robert's. It fits better that way.
3: How they skipped forward six years. Like everything was going perfect until then? Bull.

I could suggest about a million changes for this movie, but I think I'll spare you. Madonna really wasn't suited for this role.

Rating:
Summary: It's no Gone with the Wind but it's the Next best Thing.
Review: The Next best thing is not a bad movie at all it's really a good movie with alot of heart. The strengths of this movie are the cast, director, and the story. The weakness of this movie is the script but I think the cast did a great job with this material. Especially Madonna who did a great job bringing Abbie to life. Critics have always knocked down Madonna's films but the critics are always wrong anyways so dont listen to them. Be your own judge watch this movie because you really will enjoy it. Its no Gone with the Wind but its the Next best Thing.

Rating:
Summary: Not that horrible, but still...
Review: I put off seeing this for a long time due to the extremely bad reviews, but got cornered into seeing it the other day. I did find some admirable things about it, which I'll end the review to put it on a positive note. But it also has a bunch of problems which makes one think that Hollywood's idea of the world earns them the title of "La-La-Land".

The story involves a pair of best friends, a gay male and hetero female, who have a drunken liason one night that produces a child. What I thought was going to be a comedy (as it was billed) about the adventures that this causes turns out to be a much more serious movie about other things, some good, some bad.

First, we have a gardener and a yoga instructor pooling incomes. Sorry folks, these jobs don't pay a lot. While not living extravagantly, they still seem to have a lifestyle that goes way beyond their realistic incomes. This is just the first of many ways the movie is interested in portraying eye candy more than telling an even remotely realistic story.

Continuing on the eye-candy role was the complete avoidance of hard-times that come with evey new baby. Since they chose to take a very serious tone in the movie, they could have shown Madonna dragging her butt out of bed at 3 a.m. to answer a cry, or hunky Everett cleaning up a big mess. But we see this apparantly absolutely perfect baby's first years bypassed to produced an apparantly absolutely perfect child. In this world, you can't be bad-looking or out of shape.

So while the movie falls apart with no connection to reality whatsoever, I did find some things that salvaged a bit of it. When I still thought this was going to be a comedy, I was prepared to see a bunch of situations where certain cast members would not know the whole story, and there would be scenes to cover-up the situation. It was refreshing to see that the whole story was explained to each character as they entered the picture. The way all the characters acted here did give it a bit of intelligence, and it was refreshing to not see his parents freak out. I also liked that the movie averted negative gay stereotypes, but when the movie ended, and I heard one of my kids crying, it was nice to get back to reality.

Rating:
Summary: Quite extraordinary!
Review: This movie was actually really good, and I was kind of shocked. It was the first time I'd seen a movie where Michael Vartan's character actually made me so mad. (He did an awesome job, though.)

Basically, you have Abbie (Madonna) and Robert (Everett), who would be the perfect couple except that Robert is gay, so they're just the best of friends. One Independence Day, Abbie and Robert decide to get drunk (very drunk) to kind of shed their previous relationship and life problems. While drunk, they have sex. Later, Abbie learns that she is pregnant and tells Robert (who is still upset over actually having sex with a woman) that she's pregnant with his child. Robert moves in with Abbie, and they're still living in the same house after almost six years.

That's when, after Robert encourages her to date, Abbie meets and falls in love with Ben (Benjamin Bratt). This complicates everything and the satirical comedy takes a very dramatic edge, but in the end, everything will be alright.

I would definitely recommend this movie. Though, it's not the 'feel good movie of the year', it will make a lot of girls long to have a gay best friend.

Rating:
Summary: Retro, timid, limp. You're so tired, girlfriend!
Review: The Next Best Thing's advertising put great emphasis on the comedy aspects. While it does have some amusing scenes [none of them hilariously funny], the entire second half is melodrama on the order of a TV soap opera, only not nearly as clever.

Madonna plays Abbie, a hip Los Angeles woman of about forty who says she never married because she never found the right guy. When her live-in boyfriend walks out on her, she runs to her best friend, Robert [Rupert Everett], a handsome gay man who has decided that he may never have another serious relationship. He tells her she is better off without the guy, which is true, yet she pines, not so much for the old flame, as for the fact that she may never have a family of her own. Robert lives in the guest house of a swank Hollywood Hills home belonging to two old queens, who would have had the movies best lines if it had had any. Left alone at the house one 4th of July, Robert and Abbie drown their sorrows in margaritas and wind up in bed together. A few weeks later, Abbie announces she is pregnant with Robert's child. Robert decides that he will move in with her and be a real Dad to the child, although he thinks marriage would be hypocritical. After all, satisfying each other has certain limits. All this works out for six years, until Abbie meets Ben [Benjamin Bratt], and they fall in love.

This is a perfect plot for a satirical comedy about love, lust, puritanical inhibitions and other such nonsense. Instead, the movie does an about face and becomes serious. The characters get mad, angry and downright ugly. Then, as if the producers saw the damage they'd done, there is a trite 'feel good' ending, which looks tacked on.

Madonna and Everett do the best they can with the material. I can't really gauge Madonna's acting ability. She was superb in Evita and a few other movies, but I suspect that she hasn't the discipline to throw her full talents into anything she doesn't believe in one hundred percent. I know Everett is a fine actor, but here there is little he can do except reprise his character from My Best Friend's Wedding. In real life, the two stars are good friends, and I can only imagine all the knowing glances exchanged between them during production.

It is frankly a bit shocking that John Schlesinger directed the film. Thirty years ago he directed two movies, Midnight Cowboy and Sunday, Bloody Sunday, which expertly examined the nuances and subtleties of human sexuality. He's at a total loss here. I suspect most of the audience will be, too.