The Next Best Thing

Rating:
Summary: Good Start, Bad Finish
Review: I loved the first pasrt of this movie. The story was great, and it was funny. But most of the middle and all of the ending was not so great. Their first mistake was skipping 6 years. But even then the movie wasn't that bad. But I would say by the time they bring Madonna's straight soon-to-be husband lover into the story, the movie was compleately crushed. Another mistake they mader was casting a 9 year old acter for a 6 year old role. I think over all, the movie hyanked all these emotions out of you for nothing. I recomend the first half, but not the second. Even though you will probablly want to watch the depressing second half as well once you're intro the movie.

Rating:
Summary: not that bad
Review: from the way people we talking about this i thought it would be awful. it was not all that bad though.maddonna my not be the world best actress but thr other actors are good. i think the kid who played sam was pretty good. overall i thought it was to slow moving .

Rating:
Summary: THIS IS THE BEST MADONNA VIDEO!!1
Review: THE STORY IS WELL-WRITTEN. ABBY(MADONNA) IS A YOGA TEACHER AND ROBERT(RUPERT EVERETT)IS A LANDSCAPER AND IS GAY. ONE NIGHT THEY HAVE A WILD ROMP AND THE NEXT THING YOU KNOW ABBY IS CARRYING A BABY. THEN IT GETS CONFUSING. ROBERT AND ABBY DO NOT GET MARRIED BUT LIVE TOGETHER AND RAISE THE CHID AS TOGETHER. ABBY THEN DATES A INVESTMENT BANKER(BENJAMIN BRATT). THEY WANT TO GET MARRIED AND TAKE CUSTODY OF THE CHID AND ENDS UP IN A UGLY COURT CASE.

Rating:
Summary: not bad but could have been better
Review: Forget about diamonds. `The Next Best Thing' is dedicated to the proposition that a gay man is really a girl's best friend. But, man, can that make life complicated! Madonna stars as Abbie, a Southern California yoga instructor who just can't seem to find that certain someone to provide her with marriage and a child but who, at the same time, hears her biological clock ticking ominously down. Rupert Everett plays Robert, her gay best friend, whom Abbie leans upon for support in times of grave romantic crisis - which seems to be just about her normal state of affairs. One night the two get a little too drunk and frisky and end up consummating their friendship, an act that leads to Abbie's pregnancy and a decision between the two to move in together and raise the child as mother and father but not husband and wife. All goes fairly well for six years or so until Abbie falls in love with a young New York executive who wants to marry her and move the three of them away from Los Angeles and the man Sammy thinks of as his father. This leads to a complex court battle between the principals as the suddenly antagonistic best friends struggle over custody of their child.

In this day and age when less traditional relationships and families abound in our society, credit `The Next Best Thing' with at least trying to come to terms with some of the unintended and unforeseen consequences that result when well-meaning people wind up in overly complicated situations. We see that Abbie obviously has strong feelings for this man she knows she can never have, while Robert feels inexplicable stirrings of jealousy when Abbie begins to develop an interest in her new beau. We also see the difficulties faced by little Sammy as he begins to grow up and be questioned by his little friends about the unconventional relationship of his parents. (However, this interesting theme is dealt with in only the most superficial way before it is conveniently swept under the carpet). As the film examines the setup from its many different angles and perspectives, it attempts to deal fairly with the principal characters involved. No one is made out to be the heavy or the villain, yet, at the same time; all the characters have their moments of unreasonable selfishness. The main problem with `The Next Best Thing,' however, is that it is attempting to address these really serious issues in the context of a lighthearted romantic comedy. As a result, the plotting seems somehow more contrived than it might if it were developed along the lines of a serious social drama. We never really believe any of it, partly because the film seems to spend more of its time displaying and lingering over the truly phenomenal bodies of its three main actors than exploring the depth of their characters. It all seems so surface slick, replete with a too-cozy happy ending done in summary written codas flashed on the screen immediately prior to the closing credits.

Madonna and Everett are both physically very attractive performers - a real boon to the 40+ actors set that doesn't seem to get too much work in the movie romance department these days. As an actress, Madonna has certainly come a long way from her truly wretched performances in the early part of her film career. In this film, except when she is called upon to cry - in which case, she is still incredibly unconvincing - she does seem to have a more relaxed presence on the screen than she has had previously. Everett looks as though he would much rather be sinking his teeth into a far meatier role, but, given the material he has to work with, he does a serviceable job. Oddly enough, this film contains a host of secondary characters who pop up so infrequently or disappear entirely with no explanation that one wonders either why they were included in the first place or at what stage between scriptwriting and final editing they lost their way. This sloppiness and the overall timidity and slickness of the film are particularly surprising given the fact that director John Schlesinger was once responsible for such classic edgy works as "Darling" and "Midnight Cowboy" in the 1960's.

`The Next Best Thing' has its heart in the right place and its twisting/turning plot structure, built on the complex emotional needs of its character, carries the audience along fairly nicely. We can identify with these people because, although they seem well meaning, they are also way over their heads with the cards life has dealt them. Who among us cannot empathize with that situation? A pity, then, that `The Next Best Thing' didn't provide a bit more serious context in which to explore it.

Rating:
Summary: Madonna is an embarrassment...
Review: This movie is So very bad on so many different levels, that it is almost beneath any serious movie lover or critic to waste time viewing it. Madonna is at her all time low, and it is a low that few stars ever reach. She is a terribly bad actress and this time out, she made even her die-hard fans cringe in embarassment for her. Simply put, there is no guesswork here...there is not a redeaming quality in this movie. The acting, script, direction, tone, pace, etc., are all at an extremely shoddy level, and DAMN is she getting painful to look at. The only comfort comes in the knowledge of the FACT that this movie was completely shunned by not only critics but by the public as well. Even Madonna's legion of fans couldn't get her out of this one. It bombed on every level.

Rating:
Summary: So bad it hurt.
Review: This movie was so hard to watch but like a train wreck I could not turn away from it. It just kept getting worse. How did it happen. It seemed like such a great story that with the right people involved could be fun. Madonna isn't the worlds greatest actress but this wasn't high drama. I figured she could pull it of. I just wasn't convinced that she was a victim of loves tragedies. She looked so old and what was with the accent? Isn't she from Detroit? This was not the best effort by Rupert Evertt who was excellent in An Ideal Husband and My Best Friends Wedding. I belive he suffered more from the horrible writing than a lack of acting ability. Whoever wrote this must have missed a prozac pill or two because just when your used to the slowness of the story it goes to a dark depressing place. Just when the audience doesn't care what happens to either of the charectors the film takes a turn you don't expect and don't even care about anymore. I should have turned it off then but I stayed for the anti-climatic ending where nobody wins. I did not laugh once. A one star rating is way to high. Save your money

Rating:
Summary: Bad acting; Good story
Review: Madonna looks and sounds terrible in this film. It's really a shame that they didn't cast somone else in the role, because the story is unique, interesting, and engaging. Rupert Everett is pretty good in his role. Watch this flick simply for the story, and ignore the bad acting, and perhaps you too will be entertained.

Rating:
Summary: Madonna was so amazing in this movie.
Review: I loooved this movie so much. Madonna was terrific in it, despite a flawed script. When I saw it in the theatres there wasn't a dry eye in the audience.

My favorite part was where Madonna ate a hamburger and her friend asked, "I thought you were vegetarian" and I said that same thing with my friends while I was watching it. I also like the way they demolished that gay couples place. It was so funny. The dialouge was real. It wasn't contrived and intellectual like when Madonna has conversations with her bubble headed girlfriends. The movie wasn't phony to me. Like most of the movies I see Merle Streep in.

The ending where Rupert's character turns really nasty was kind of weird though. It became a soap opera and I was wanting the comedy part more.

Rating:
Summary: ugh..so bad...so very, very bad
Review: Madonna cannot act- in a nutshell. Sheshone in "Evita" because it required no speaking dialogue,and in "Desperately Seeking Susan" and "A League ofTheir Own" because they did not require to act like anythingother than her current personality. Her on again-off again Britishaccent attempt made me cringe like I was biting on tinfoil. Unfortunately, she only knows how to deliver her lines inover-the-top, high drama style and unevenly, as if she's reading fromcue cards she can't quite see clearly. Madonna isn't entirley toblame, though. This script stinks on ice. There are no smoothtransitions from one scene to another. Can you say "characterdevelopement"? Even Rupert Everett's legendary charm and witcannot bail out this leaky rowboat. How can Abbie and her newboyfriend go from "nice to meet you" to "I'm in lovewith you, let's get married" in 20 minutes? Pul-eeze. Thedirection and script on this film made me grateful that it ended.

Rating:
Summary: Pa-thet-ic! There is so much wrong with this movie.
Review: This movie is SO bad, it's almost painful to watch. Full of cliches, despite trying to be "edgy" with the gay issues and the whole yoga thing. Madonna's acting is so poor, probably because she was concentrating so veddy hard on trying to enunciate and use British inflections: "Are you asking me on a date?" UGH!! Even her hair is gross-looking. Everything about her distracts from the film, and her character comes off as being abrasive. Rupert Everett and Benjamin Bratt are both incredibly charming and attractive, but, alas, they cannot save the day, as there is only one scene in which they play with Madonna not speaking in the background. The jump from the cliched birthing scene to the child being five years old; and then the nifty written story tie-up just before the credits roll -- it is incredibly bad. The only thing I can say is that it bombed at the box office, and is therefore less offensive, as that should tell Madonna that even with her fan base, the general public is not made up of fools.