Raising Helen Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)May 29th, 2004
RAISING HELEN
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Touchstone Pictures
Grade: D
Directed by: Garry Marshall
Written by: Jack Amiel, Michael Begler, story by Patrick J. Clifton, Bethany Rigazio
Cast: Kate Hudson, John Corbett, Joan Cusack, Hayden Panettiere, Spencer Breslin, Abigail Breslin, Helen Mirren Screened at: Loews 34th St., NYC, 5/9/04
Some women (like some men, to be sure) are not meant to have high-power careers. After all, how many people, however sharp, are willing to give their all to a company, ready to glory in their competitive edge to rise up the corporate ladder? Some women (like all men) are not meant to be mothers, a more important job than being CEO of IBM though not generally recognized by society to be so. Alas, being a mother does not require a license or a 4.0 grade average at Harvard Business School. Some folks are meant for neither the fast track nor the mommy track. Take Helen, who is ironically the one being raised in Garry Marshall's latest project. She seems too cutesy- frilly to join the executive hunt nor can one imagine many people less maternal than she. Nonetheless, "Raising Helen," which like a warm, homeless puppy begs attention interminably, is a movie that has the look of a Hallmark card, evoking the kind of doggerel that would make normal people gag while desperately putting their fingers down their throats to shuck off its saccharine overkill.
This is the sort of film you'd expect from the Garry Marshall of "The Princess Diaries" (about a high-school ugly duckling who learns she's a princess) but not from the Garry Marshall of the more realistic and gritty "Frankie and Johnny" (about an ex-con who gets a job as short-order cook and falls in love with a waitress). Then again, what's on display is the director's fondness for romances, off-beat and otherwise.
This time around, Marshall, working with a screenplay by Jack Ameil and Michael Begler based on a story by Patrick J. Clifton and Beth Rigazio, is determined to show that one does not have to choose between the mommy track and the corporate line but can not only handle both gigs albeit with predictable complications, but can find romance with a large puppy-dog of a man who gives the impression that Mutt can easily pair off with Jeff because with true love, anything's possible.
As the story opens we see the two sides of Helen Harris (Kate Hudson); that of an executive assistant to a high-flying modeling agency run by Dominique (Helen Mirren); and as an aunt who visits her sister and brother-in-law on Mother's Day, looking fondly at her sister's three kids, Audrey (Hayden Panettiere), Kenny (Spencer Breslin) and Sarah (Abigail Breslin) but with no thought of spending more than a few days per year with them. When the parents of the three die suddenly in a car accident and, strangely enough, bequeath the three kids to Helen rather than with her more Stepfordish Jenny (Joan Cusack), Helen would never have gone along, except for the fact that she's in this soapy kind of movie.
What follows is the obligatory trajectory, one you've seen no small number of times on TV, wherein the party gal tries to reinvent herself by becoming a good foster mom, strangely enough not objecting to the fact that she must move to Queens ("I'm not a bridge-and-tunnel person"). In that outer zone sometimes referred to as the "Queens housewives" borough, Helen learns by trial and error that she not only can tender both love and discipline to the three the oldest of whom she saves in the nick of time from a possible pregnancy in a motel room but can meet a handsome, sensitive man, Pastor Dan (John Corbitt) who notwithstanding her smart, cute personality appears to be the only guy she's dating.
Isn't this set up cute? To enroll her kids in a Lutheran school, she pretends she's of that religion (though the pastor, whom she calls "father," clues her in that only fifteen percent of the enrollees are of his faith); she teaches the eight-year-old (hold on to your hat) how to tie her shoes, and even sneaks a body- double turtle into the bowl watched over by Henry when the lad's previous amphibian dies suddenly.
Though the story is banal, some performances stand out, including one by Marshall regular Hector Elizondo as a salesman of previously-owned cars, that of Helen Mirren as the starchy head of the modeling agency, and of Joan Cusack as the pregnant person who should have been given the kids in the first place. Then again, if Helen refused the kids straight-off, there wouldn't be a movie, would there? Hmmm. A consummation devoutly to be wished?
Rated PG-13. 115 minutes. Copyright 2004 by Harvey Karten
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
