Kate Hudson is adorable. That's not enough to save Raising Helen, a film about an uptown girl who has to change her life to raise three kids.
Raising Helen has a wonderful cast that includes Dame Helen Mirren, Felicity Huffman and John Corbett, none of whom has much to do. What turns this one into a mediocre outing is the writing -- when the 9-year-old in the next seat can anticipate every plot development and emotional response, you know you're in sitcom land. And you are.
Hudson stars as Helen, footloose and fancy free and very successfully employed at a modelling agency in Manhattan. Felicity Huffman and Joan Cusack portray her sisters, both married with children. Oops! Family tragedy.
What to do? Can Helen, the youngest and least-responsible sister, take on the role of single parent to three young kids? Can she give up her wild and crazy single life to pack school lunches and teach tots to tie shoelaces? You'll have to wait, bated breath and all, and see for yourself. Golly.
The best bits in Raising Helen are all secondary to the main narrative. There are amusing scenes with Hector Elizondo at a used car lot, several sequences that permit Joan Cusack to show her comedic genius as an uber-mom and moments of Helen Mirren's all-purpose brilliance.
Still, when a movie needs more than one appearance from Paris Hilton to contrast Helen's old life with her new, you have to figure somebody somewhere ran out of ideas.
Or never had any in the first place.
The children in Raising Helen -- Hayden Panettiere, Spencer Breslin and Abigail Breslin -- are cute and competent. But they're really just wallpaper here, background dressing for the transformation of Kate Hudson's character as she grows into the role of their caretaker.
And that transformation is pedestrian.
Raising Helen has elements of great comedy and great tragedy and both are so ickily candy-coated that nothing has any impact. (The film is billed as a romantic comedy, so we won't get into what seems to be some confusion on the screenwriters' part as to just what constitutes 'funny' in the world of parenthood.)
Adults have already seen everything Raising Helen has to offer, and they've seen it done a lot better, too.
This one is for pre-teens and adolescents.
(This film is rated PG)
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