Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageThe Next Best Thing (2000)
Director: John Schlesinger
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
This is one long mess, but Madonna, as Abbie, a needy yoga teacher who decides having a baby with gay best friend Robert (Everett) is the closest she'll get to playing happy families, is only partly to blame. What she's brilliant at is insouciance, wax-museum kitsch and, in her pop videos, even weakness, of the blissfully OTT 'Baby Jane' kind. But honest to goodness vulnerability? Madonna looks the modern singleton's part, but she can't make the woundedness stick. One scene only is cause for celebration, wherein her bolshie body is allowed to do all the talking. It's the little boy's birthday and a wrung-out Abbie is glaring at Robert as he allows himself to be flirted with. It's not just panic and envy we see in her eyes, but lust, a real noir look, ablaze with neurotic life. But this lovely, dangly moment - one of the few times director Schlesinger lets himself sit back and observe - is soon a distant memory, for the film has a seizure and decides it wants to be Kramer vs Kramer.Author: CO'Su
Cast & crew
Director: John Schlesinger
Producer: Tom Rosenberg, Leslie Dixon, Linne Radmin
Cast: Madonna, Rupert Everett, Bejamin Bratt, Michael Vartan, Josef Sommer, Malcolm Stumpf, Lynn Redgrave, Neil Patrick Harris, Illeana Douglas, Gavin Lambert full cast
Duration: 108 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Ang Lee talks 'Taking Woodstock'
Ang Lee talks to Tom Huddleston about his tale of the men behind history’s greatest music festival
Hippies who work for The Man
To celebrate George Clooney comedy 'The Men who Stare at Goats', we look back at six memorable onscreen hippies who fought the system from within
Roland Emmerich's guide to disaster movies
Ahead of the release of '2012', Roland Emmerich offers his ten tips on creating the perfect global catastrophe
Grant Heslov: interview
Grant Heslov, director of 'The Men who Stare at Goats' talks about his old pal George Clooney, his interest in the paranormal, and his fond memories of working on 'Happy Days'
The Coen brothers discuss 'A Serious Man'
Masters of contrary comedy, Joel and Ethan Coen have struck gold again with their latest, ‘A Serious Man’
Ten inspirations behind 'Avatar'?
Time Out ponders the influences behind James Cameron's anticipated space-opera on the basis of the trailer
Michael Haneke: The man behind the menace
From Cannes to Munich to London, Dave Calhoun tours Michael Haneke's Palme d'Or winner, 'The White Ribbon'
How Jane Campion brought John Keats back to life
Time Out gets Romantic with the ‘difficult’ New Zealander about her new film, 'Bright Star'
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations
What do you think?
Post your review now