Stars: Madonna, Rupert Everett, Michael Vartan, Illeana Douglas, Lynn Redgrave, Stacy Edwards, Benjamin Bratt, Josef Sommer, Neil Patrick Harris, Linda Larkin, Malcolm Stumpf, Mark Valley

Director: John Schlesinger

Summary: Best friends, Abbie, a straight woman and Robert, a gay man decide to have a child together. They both raise the child, until Robert falls in love with another man and then decides that he wants custody...

When best friends Abbie (Madonna - EVITA) and Robert (Everett - MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING)--who happens to be gay--engage in an unexpected tryst, they write it off as the result of clouded judgment from too many drinks. However, when Abbie discovers she's pregnant, the two decide to move in together and form a loving, if unconventional, family. Everett sparkles and Madonna oozes her usual cool in this drama/comedy from the director of MIDNIGHT COWBOY.

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The Next Best Thingoffers the pairing of Rupert Everett and Madonna and you'd be hard-pressed to find a modern-day couple as impossibly glamorous; their casting as common folk in the gay-parenting drama is just one of the film's myriad problems (have we ever needed to see these two pushing grocery carts in a supermarket?). Best friends in sun-dappled LA (he's a landscaper, she's a yoga instructor), Abbie (Madonna) and Robert (Everett) fall into an amorous embrace on a fateful Fourth of July after a few too many martinis. Robert's gay, which complicates things; even more complicating is Abbie's confession a few weeks later that she's with child. Six years later, Robert, Abbie, and their son Sam are all living together peacefully and happily--that is, until a hunky investment banker (Benjamin Bratt) starts making eyes at Abbie, throwing their carefully constructed dynamic into disarray.

Lazily directed by Oscar-winner John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy) with an eye towards his actors' muscle tone rather than characterisations (even the kid does yoga), the faults in The Next Best Thingaren't solely on the shoulders of its miscast stars, but rather the painfully inept screenplay by Tom Ropelewski (Look Who's Talking Now). With cardboard dialogue that sounds like bad first-draft material--including wailing by Madonna about how she can't find a man (ha!) and a gym-buffed Everett complaining about gay male body image (double ha!)--the movie stumbles from domestic comedy to custody-suit tragedy when it takes a bizarre left turn in the third act. Any statements about new definitions of family are buried underneath these dubious events, which (of course) provide teary courtroom outbursts for both leads. Everett has a quick way with a one-liner, and Madonna is more relaxed than she's ever been in a film, but Schlesinger just tosses them in front of the camera with no help whatsoever; the supporting cast, including Lynn Redgrave, Neil Patrick Harris, and Illeana Douglas, is also left to flounder inexplicably. There's a thoughtful and provocative movie to be made about gay parents, but The Next Best Thingcertainly isn't it. --Mark Englehart, Amazon.com

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Subtitles:	Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
Year:	2000
Release Date:	August 1, 2005
Runtime:	103 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	B E D 888156
Keywords:	Comedy, Next, General, Wide, Screen, Thing, Best, Drama, Elevation
Genre:	Drama