Despite annoyingly slow start, ‘Raising Helen’ finds its rhythm
The first half of my notepad for “Raising Helen” is littered with “No ways,” but the second half has more “I likes.” In other words: Starts out bad, gets better.
Ads make “Helen” look like a romantic comedy, but it’s actually a serio-comic story in which Helen (Kate Hudson) has to grow up fast when she becomes the guardian of two nieces and a nephew. Early on, I also was annoyed to see the drably photographed Joan Cusack stuck in the pinched, no-fun role of Hudson’s Laura-Ashleyed sister. And it bugged me that, like every 20-something woman in the movies, Hudson works in the fashion industry, that Paris Hilton has a cheesy cameo and that a prominent slapstick bit at a fashion show is lifted from “Sex and the City.”
A lot of that stuff will grind your nerves, too, because it emphasizes how familiar this territory is. But once the cast finds its rhythm and director Garry Marshall gets into the meat of the film, good things start to happen.
Cusack’s character is allowed to explain herself and reveals she’s not such a dish rag after all. Hudson lets up on the twinkly grins and gets real in scenes that show insight into what it might be like to become an insta-parent. Mistakes are made, but the characters (and the movie) hone in on the important stuff: family, surviving, sticking it out.
I’m tempted to ascribe the flaws in “Helen” to the so-so script and the “I likes” to Marshall (“The Princess Diaries”), who has a knack for locating the funny, real behavior in dopey, unreal situations. “Helen” is smartly directed and cast (John Corbett is perfect as the love interest in the film’s wisely downplayed romance). And, although it seems a bit overlong, it feels right that Helen doesn’t immediately embrace being a mom.
The movie gets at how painful, awful and, ultimately, worthwhile it is to be a parent – and, if it takes its time getting to that message, that makes sense. Because I’d imagine it takes some time for real-life parents to get good at it, too.