THE NEXT BEST THING (Paramount) Starring: Rupert Everett, Madonna, Benjamin Bratt, Malcolm Stumpf, Michael Vartan, Illeana Douglas, Lynn Redgrave. Screenplay: Thomas Ropelewski. Producers: Tom Rosenberg, Leslie Dixon and Linne Radmin. Director: John Schlesinger. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (adult themes, profanity, brief nudity) Running Time: 105 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
You can be sure that THE NEXT BEST THING will find plenty of viewers unsympathetic to its message in support of unconventional family structure -- the Christian Coalition, for example, or the Utah State Legislature. We may have come a long way, baby, in matters of social tolerance, but we haven't come _that_ far. Still, you would expect the people involved in making THE NEXT BEST THING to have the passion to turn it into a compelling story. Rupert Everett is perhaps the only openly gay actor playing leading man roles. John Schlesinger is one of the few openly gay directors making Hollywood films. And Madonna well, I saw TRUTH OR DARE, so I get the impression she's fairly familiar with alternative lifestyles.
What, then, is the excuse for THE NEXT BEST THING turning out so generally dreary and uninspired? It starts with a provocative premise involving two L.A. best friends: yoga instructor Abbie Reynolds (Madonna) and gay gardener/landscape architect Robert Whitaker (Everett). The pair share all their relationship traumas with one another, and spend many nights crying on one another's shoulders. Then, one drunken evening, crying on shoulders turns into something more complicated: a one-night stand that results in a pregnancy. Abbie and Robert decide that their best friendship could make them wonderful parents, so they move in together and become mother and father to their son Sam. And all is well until six years later, when Abbie's desire for a more conventional relationship threatens to come between Robert and Sam (Malcolm Stumpf).
As with many films, so far so good in the general concept department. It's only in the execution that THE NEXT BEST THING becomes an ordeal to endure. The character of Abbie is the heart of the disaster, and I'd be inclined to blame screenwriter Thomas Ropelewski (more on his faults to come) if not for the screen performance tragedy that is Madonna. Once upon a time she had a sassy edge, the quality that made her leap off the screen in DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN. These days, it's impossible to notice anything but that deliberate, affected speech pattern of hers. Abbie does some pretty unsympathetic things over the course of the film, so it's crucial that she be played with some energy and charm. Madonna can only manage attitude, turning Abbie into a straight-up witch just when she needs to be confused and conflicted. It's a performance so leaden it drags every single thing about THE NEXT BEST THING down along with it.
With such a horrendous casting mistake at the heart of THE NEXT BEST THING, sapping it of any possible resonance, it's easy to tune out and spend great heaping chunks of the film mulling over its other faults. Like, did Ropelewski think there was a rule that any film featuring a gay character must have an AIDS-related sub-plot, no matter how irrelevant to the rest of the story (hint: it could have been more relevant had there been an attempt to connect the question of surviving partners' rights to gay parents' rights)? Why did usually reliable cinematographer Elliot Davis light the whole film as though we were in a cave, except for the Morticia Adams Memorial Eye, Nose & Throat Spotlight used on Madonna? And what was with Schlesinger's frequent use of fish-eye point-of-view perspectives that merely served to make a serio-comic tale occasionally border on the grotesque?
It's obvious that THE NEXT BEST THING wants to make a statement about inequities in the adjudication of custody matters, and question what it is that makes a parent. The statement and question are both valid, but that's all there is to this clumsy concoction. Rupert Everett is solid both comedically and dramatically, providing virtually all of the film's worthwhile moments, but he's the only thing about THE NEXT BEST THING that doesn't inspire far more head shaking than righteous indignation. Sure, everyone involved was probably telling a story about which they felt deeply, and their hearts were certainly in the right place. When you're making a film, however, heart just isn't always enough. The real question to everyone involved is where their heads were.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 errors o' parents: 3.
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