Superstar Carrying Gay Man's Baby!

The Next Best Thing

Dir. John Schlesinger

Starring Madonna

Years ago, while performing in The Vortex in London's West End, English actor Rupert Everett responded to a audience member's nasty critique of his acting by mailing her several of his pubic hairs. Luckily, current reviewers can rest assured, because his newest collaboration with Madonna, The Next Best Thing, is a sweet screenful of love and friendship that gives the real life friends a chance to play characters similar to themselves on the big screen. As Abbie and Robert, however, the duo fail to stretch their acting ranges as they tackle roles that prove to be too similar, if not parallel, to their own personal lives.

Dir. John Schlesinger

Starring Madonna

Much like her off-screen persona, Madonna plays Abbie, a single yoga instructor with a long history of unsuccessful relationships. Abbie's Rock of Gibraltar is her best friend Robert (Everett), a gay landscape architect who has not been so lucky in love himself. The two are best friends in every sense of the word-in times of crisis, they rely on one another for solace, comfort and companionship. However, their platonic relationship is soon threatened by the death of a close friend-they consequently drown their sorrows away by indulging in an afternoon of cocktails, dancing and inebriated revelry. After accidentally taking their relationship to a physical level, Abbie soon discovers that she is pregnant with Robert's child. Realizing that their relationship is the next best thing to a real romantic relationship, the two friends embark on an emotional adventure as the (unmarried) couple decide to become the parents. But the void of romantic loneliness still pervades each of the central characters. One particular night, after watching Robert leave on a date, Abbie plaintatively prays, "Dear God. Wherever you are, could you please hook me up?" Her prayer is answered in the form of Ben Cooper (Benjamin Bratt), an investment banker who accidentally stumbles into her yoga studio and into her heart. The real drama begins when their romance begins to usurp Robert's position as their son Sam's father. Abbie is soon forced to decide whether she and her child should stay with Robert or start a new life with her future husband.

The Next Best Thing was directed by Englishman John Schlesinger, an Academy Award-winning veteran of such classic dramatic fare as Midnight Cowboy, Sunday, Bloody Sunday and Marathon Man. While I do admire his attempt to stretch, Schlesinger, so skillful at creating dramatic conflict, does not appear to be as comfortable with the lighter material, and interplay between the various supporting characters often appears a little forced. This is clearly Madonna and Everett's show, and the supporting characters are not given enough to do and seem to exist simply to transition gaps in the storyline. As Ben Cooper, Benjamin Bratt (formerly of NBC's "Law and Order") is simply employed as an attractive man who conveniently stumbles into Abbie's live and falls in love with her rather quickly. Academy Award nominated actress Lynn Redgrave is underused as Robert's affable and quirky mother, and Neil Patrick Harris (the currently star of NBC's "Stark Raving Mad") pops up occasionally to console Robert as a fellow gay man. Sam, played by newcomer Malcolm Stumpf at age six, is born and grows ups in a matter of seconds. In fact, each little character episode speeds through the film, providing transitions before quickly returning to the center of attention: Madonna and Everett sparring, making up, or simply conversing. It is as if the audience has secretly slipped into their private sphere and is now covertly spying on what their personal off-screen lives must be like. Schlesinger appears more comfortable towards the end of the film, when the movie makes an irreversible turn from comedy to drama. This dramatic shift of tone in the last third of the film follows the arrival of Ben Cooper and the complications his romance with Abbie brings. The humor that pervaded the first half of the film is conspicuously absent towards the poignant end.

Much of the discrepancy stems from the screenplay itself. The role of Abbie was originally envisioned as a swimming instructor, but after Madonna joined the cast, the character was not only given a change in occupation, but also remolded to better fit her own individual personality. Everett's character was fleshed out as well, and given a number of Rupertesque flourishes, such as when he spurns Madonna's character's interest and declares, "You are the woman I'd most like to...be." However, given that the two actors are basically playing themselves, the movie has a kind of lightness that helps it to rise above other plodding plotlines concerning the unconventional family, such as 1998's The Object of My Affection.

The film inevitably draws comparisons to and can practically be considered a possible sequel to My Best Friend's Wedding, the 1997 hit that made a breakout star out of Everett. Although he has been making films since the 80s, it was not until his role as Julia Robert's droll and retro-English gay confidante that Everett was brought to the forefront of Hollywood. The essence of casual bonhomie, Everett is naturally charming, inquisitive and seemingly at complete ease with himself, traits that are clearly reflected in the character of Robert, yet another droll and charming English confidante. He once again steals his scenes from his leading lady, especially in one comical scene where he must retrieve Abbie's key from her ex-boyfriend Kevin. Skeletally, both films overlap in plot line as well. During a scene when Robert and Abbie burst spontaneously into Doug McLean's classic "American Pie" at a funeral, one can't help but compare it to Everett's similarly spontaneous outburst of "I Say A Little Prayer" in the earlier film. In both personas, Everett also frequently tosses his Rupert-y quips. As he tells Abbie, "If I were you, and I practically am. Fabulousness and great shoes are not the only things we have in common."

The Next Best Thing is a good and amusing but far from great movie. Although the movie plods a little bit in the courtroom scenes, the interactions between Madonna and Everett are entertaining. Especially in the drunken dance sequence, when Robert and Abbie frolic about the house of one of Robert's employers in the graceful style of Astaire and Rogers, one cannot help but get a sense of voyeurism. Because their on screen and off screen personas are so similar, it is often difficult to see when the movie begins, and where reality settles in the picture.

B-