Then She Found Me

Tagline: Life can change in a heartbeat.

So, I had seen this title and it seemed to keep popping up everywhere however I put it at the bottom of my list thinking it would be another sappy unrealistic romantic comedy. After reading more about it and finding out it was Helen Hunt’s directorial debut and Colin Firth was playing one of the leads, I decided to watch it.

This movie was actually ten years in the making for Helen Hunt, adapted from a 1990 novel of the same name by Elinor Lipman. After multiple rejections, she ended up producing the movie herself and co-wrote the screenplay. She also got Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, and Colin Firth to work for scale in this movie! If someone as great as Helen Hunt was so passionate about this movie and even got these great actors on board with basically no pay, I had to see it.

The film is actually a little indie dramedy with a strong female lead, played by Hunt. The plot revolves around Hunt’s character, April Epner, whose husband leaves her randomly one day and then her adoptive mother dies the very next day. She works as a schoolteacher and starts a relationship with a divorced father, Colin Firth, of one of her students. She is then approached by a successful morning talk show host, Better Midler, who claims she is her biological mother and Steve McQueen is the ‘famously dead father’. This all goes on around her while Hunt, who is 39 ½, desperately wants a child of her own.

The screenplay was nicely written. The characters felt so real, especially Hunt and Firth’s characters. They were given great dialogue that actually forged into what felt like a real relationship. There was a lot of dry subtle humor and I would disagree that there was any sitcom humor in this movie. It was not over the top and is nicely categorized as a dramedy. The issues in the movie are real and at the core it focuses on love. It also has a nice religious element but is not overbearing or even dogmatic. I usually don’t like these types of movies that focus on love, family and spousal, but this story was so subtle about it that it was not distracting or unrealistic.

Helen Hunt produced the movie herself so obviously the technical budget is not going to be that big but I don’t think the cinematography was lacking anywhere. This was a story driven movie and therefore the cinematic elements were not needed to move the film along. The lighting, editing, and camerawork were basic but not immature. The performances were captured at the right angles and the pace was smooth throughout the film.

The performances were great, especially with Colin Firth. He did just a fantastic job. We’ve seen him so many times as the humble romantic interest and in many ways he was this character again but we saw his imperfections in this movie. He has a great scene with Hunt towards the end with a great monologue about his true feelings as a divorced father of two with an absent mother of the children. Hunt also did great. She was much more believable as this character than she was in As Good As it Gets, which she won an Oscar for. She is down to earth and has indecisive moments and weaknesses like all of us. Bette Middler is at her best doing a character only she could pull off. She is the perfect peppy tv host who gave up her daughter for adoption 39 years ago. I think Broderick was perfect for this part and really pulled off the grown husband who is still a boy.

I was very happy with this movie. It was touching and real at the same time which is hard to find these days. Most of the indie dramedies that I enjoy are much darker and usually not heartwarming, but this one was really superb. I love the backstory about the passion Hunt had in making this movie which just makes it better for me. I love a movie that is made because it is just a story that has to be told versus a major studio production obviously made just for a profit. I wouldn’t really say this was a typical love story as it really was about the different kinds of love in the main characters life and the need to accept and open herself up to it, and I know how it sounds but it was not over the top sappy. I would recommend this to anyone who likes realistic dramedies or anyone who wants to see an easy laid back movie and real performances with a story-driven plot. Great Quote; “What do you write?” , “Books. . . . Jackets. I write book jackets for other people’s books”.