Then She Found Me

The American weepie Then She Found Me is about the break-up of a marriage between teachers working in the same school. In her directorial debut, Helen Hunt plays a 39-year-old Jewish primary school teacher in New York desperate to have a child, whose immature husband Matthew Broderick walks out on her. When shortly thereafter her adoptive mother dies she's pursued by the birth mother from hell, a talk-show hostess played by Bette Midler at her most smothering. She drifts into a complicated affair with British neurotic Colin Firth, a divorcé with two small children, both attending her school, then discovers she's pregnant by the estranged husband. Salman Rushdie is her obstetrician, and on the strength of this film and his appearance in Bridget Jones's Diary one feels he's better at writing about Midnight's Children than preparing to deliver them. And next time Hunt gets behind the camera she should have a better script.