Review: Raising Helen (***)

RAISING HELEN
A film review by Steve Rhodes

Copyright 2004 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****): ***


RAISING HELEN isn't great, but, with Kate Hudson, it's cute enough. The
story of a busy professional woman who inherits a family, RAISING HELEN is
another comedy directed by the prolific Garry Marshall (PRETTY WOMAN, THE
PRINCESS DIARIES, etc.).



When we meet Helen Harris (Hudson), she is a hotshot executive assistant at
Dominique's, the top modeling agency in New York. Going from one glamorous
extra-high heel event to another, Helen sweet talks her way into the most
popular clubs and restaurants in the city. Against her unbounded charm,
resistance is futile. She loves her high profile Manhattan lifestyle and
convenient apartment.



Meanwhile in the New Jersey suburbs, her two sisters, Jenny Portman (Joan
Cusack) and Lindsay Davis (Felicity Huffman), live what Jenny calls "a
Pottery Barn lifestyle." Jenny, who has a houseful of kids and another one
whose arrival is imminent, says proudly, "Being a mom is the greatest job on
earth."



After Lindsay and her husband are killed in an accident, Helen is surprised
to find that Lindsay has left her three kids, Audrey, Henry and Sarah
(Hayden Panettiere, Spencer Breslin and Abigail Breslin), to be raised by
Helen rather than the obvious choice of supermom Jenny.



Although she tries to cope, Helen fails miserably at being both a mom and a
busy professional woman. As Helen's boss, Dominique (Helen Mirren), puts it
bluntly, "Fashion and family do not mix." This blatant putdown of the
possibilities of being a working mother is actually pretty ridiculous even
if it is presented humorously. Another implausibility in the story comes
when Helen realizes that Manhattan is too expensive for the size place they
need to live in, but, rather than choosing to commute from the kids' old
home area in New Jersey, she moves them into a somewhat questionable
neighborhood in Queens. When she finds the public schools in Queens too
dangerous, she puts the kids in a Lutheran school, which provides her with a
new boyfriend in the dorky headmaster known as Pastor Dan (John Corbett).



The kids have lots of issues, which Aunt Helen, growing up herself in the
process, helps them through. There are enough laughs along the way to make
up for the sappy last act which ends in a very predictable twist and double
twist. Hudson is a real trooper, who, exhibiting her usual high intensity
charisma, makes even a mediocre comedy worthwhile.



RAISING HELEN runs 1:55. It is rated PG-13 for "thematic issues involving
teens" and would be acceptable for kids around 7 and up.



The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, May 28, 2004. In
the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC and the Century theaters.



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