Then She Found Me
Encyclopedia
Then She Found Me is a 2007
American
comedy-drama
film
directed by Helen Hunt
. The screenplay by Hunt, Alice Arlen, and Victor Levin is based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Elinor Lipman
. The film marked Hunt's feature film
directorial debut.
elementary school
teacher, finds her life derailed by a series of events over which she has no control. Her husband Ben abruptly leaves her, her abrasive adoptive mother Trudy passes away the following day, and shortly after she is contacted by Alan, a representative of Bernice Graves, the flamboyant host of a local talk show
, who introduces herself as her biological mother.
Although intrigued by Bernice's claim she was fathered by Steve McQueen
, April initially resists her efforts to forge a relationship. At the same time, she finds herself attracted to Frank, the divorced father of one of her students, as the two get to know each other via lengthy telephone conversations. For their first date he escorts her to a party at Bernice's apartment.
Complications arise when April discovers she is pregnant, the result of a quick and clumsy coupling with Ben on the kitchen floor just before he left her. April has longed to have a child all her life and is delighted with the news, but is confused and upset by Ben's sudden return, Frank's hasty departure, and Bernice's insistent attempts to create a bond between them. Not helping the situation is the discovery Bernice voluntarily put her up for adoption a full year after her birth and not three days later at the urging of her parents, according to the scenario she initially presented. When April miscarries, her brother Freddy tries to counsel her, but ultimately she must rely on her deep-rooted faith to deal with the betrayals she has suffered not only at the hands of those she trusted but by the God she worships as well.
agreed to play the relatively small role of Ben for scale, and his commitment inspired Hunt to approach Bette Midler
and Colin Firth
, who were impressed by her passion for the project and agreed to work for minimum pay as well. Although she originally did not intend to portray April, Hunt decided casting herself in the role ultimately would lighten her work load as a director since she would have one less performance to help mold.
Janeane Garofalo
and Tim Robbins
make brief cameo appearance
s as themselves.
The film was shot on location in Brooklyn, including the waterfront community of Gerritsen Beach
, and Manhattan
. Interiors were filmed at Steiner Studios
in the Brooklyn Navy Yard
.
The film's soundtrack
includes "For You" by Duncan Sheik
, "In The Red" by Tina Dickow, "I'll Say I'm Sorry Now" by Shawn Colvin
, "Naked As We Came" by Iron & Wine
, and "Cool, Clear Water" by Bonnie Raitt
.
The film premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
. It was shown at numerous 2008 film festivals, including the Palm Springs International Film Festival
, the Portland International Film Festival, the Boulder International Film Festival
, the Cleveland International Film Festival
, South by Southwest
, and the Ashland Independent Film Festival
before going into limited theatrical release in New York City and Los Angeles on April 25, 2008. It earned $72,594 on nine screens on its opening weekend and eventually grossed $3,735,717 in the US and $4,406,520 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $8,142,237.
. Whereas some critics praised the film for having strong performances, others felt the film was bogged down by a weak script and technical issues.
Stephen Holden of the New York Times said that "Ms. Hunt takes every opportunity to avoid easy comic shtick and cutesy-poo sentimentality in an effort to make her characters act and sound like real people . . . you can feel [her], both as director and actor, discarding sitcom
conventions to shoot for something deeper and truer. And she achieves it, mostly through the shaded performances of Mr. Firth and Ms. Midler, as well as her own."
David Edwards of the Daily Mirror, on the other hand, said "the main problem is one of tone, the movie shifting between pale sitcom humour and sloppy romantic overtures, making for an uneven and unfulfilling experience."
Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle
observed, "You would think that frontloading Then She Found Me with so much plot would make it play like a soap opera
. But Hunt saves the movie from this fate in two ways. First she turns in a touchingly real performance, the best of her big-screen career. Forget that As Good as It Gets
won her an Oscar
. She's eons better and more realistic in this one . . . By directing Then She Found Me, Helen becomes its savior as well . . . Hunt knows when to rein in the Divine Miss M instead of allowing her to go into full Kabuki
mode . . .[She] also coaxes pitch-perfect performances from Broderick and Firth."
Richard Roeper
of Ebert & Roeper
called the film "consistently mediocre" and said it "practically invites you to forget about it two days after you’ve seen it."
John Anderson of the Washington Post disagreed, saying "Hunt directs a lot of this like a TV movie, and the music by the estimable David Mansfield is used to frog-march the film's emotional content, rather than letting it simply enhance the proceedings . . . Then She Found Me suffers from, if anything, a lack of pure confidence in the story, the actors or the audience."
Carina Chocano of the Los Angeles Times
called the film "unexpectedly sharp, light and appealing," "a testament to Hunt's skills behind the camera," and "a low-key, rather consoling fantasy deftly masquerading as way-we-live-now slice of life." Although she felt Hunt as April was a "slight casting misstep," she thought "all in all, Then She Found Me is a warm, entertaining and well-made little movie and an auspicious debut for Hunt the director."
format on September 2, 2008. The English audio track is in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
, and there are subtitles in English
for the hearing impaired
and Spanish
. Bonus features include director's commentary with Helen Hunt, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film, cast interviews, and the original trailer.
2007 in film
This is a list of major films released in 2007.-Top grossing films:Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top grossing films that were first released in the USA in 2007...
American
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
comedy-drama
Comedy-drama
Comedy-drama is a genre of theatre, film and television programs which combines humorous and serious content.-Theatre:Traditional western theatre, beginning with the ancient Greeks, was divided into comedy and tragedy...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
directed by Helen Hunt
Helen Hunt
Helen Elizabeth Hunt is an American actress, film director, and screenwriter. She starred in the sitcom Mad About You for seven years, before being cast in the romantic comedy As Good as It Gets...
. The screenplay by Hunt, Alice Arlen, and Victor Levin is based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Elinor Lipman
Elinor Lipman
Elinor Lipman is an American novelist and short story writer.-Biography:Born and raised in Lowell, Massachusetts, Lipman graduated from Simmons College where she studied journalism. She lives in western Massachusetts and Manhattan, and received the New England Book award for fiction in 2001...
. The film marked Hunt's feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
directorial debut.
Plot
Deeply religious April Epner, a 39-year-old BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
elementary school
Elementary school
An elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...
teacher, finds her life derailed by a series of events over which she has no control. Her husband Ben abruptly leaves her, her abrasive adoptive mother Trudy passes away the following day, and shortly after she is contacted by Alan, a representative of Bernice Graves, the flamboyant host of a local talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
, who introduces herself as her biological mother.
Although intrigued by Bernice's claim she was fathered by Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen
Terrence Steven "Steve" McQueen was an American movie actor. He was nicknamed "The King of Cool." His "anti-hero" persona, which he developed at the height of the Vietnam counterculture, made him one of the top box-office draws of the 1960s and 1970s. McQueen received an Academy Award nomination...
, April initially resists her efforts to forge a relationship. At the same time, she finds herself attracted to Frank, the divorced father of one of her students, as the two get to know each other via lengthy telephone conversations. For their first date he escorts her to a party at Bernice's apartment.
Complications arise when April discovers she is pregnant, the result of a quick and clumsy coupling with Ben on the kitchen floor just before he left her. April has longed to have a child all her life and is delighted with the news, but is confused and upset by Ben's sudden return, Frank's hasty departure, and Bernice's insistent attempts to create a bond between them. Not helping the situation is the discovery Bernice voluntarily put her up for adoption a full year after her birth and not three days later at the urging of her parents, according to the scenario she initially presented. When April miscarries, her brother Freddy tries to counsel her, but ultimately she must rely on her deep-rooted faith to deal with the betrayals she has suffered not only at the hands of those she trusted but by the God she worships as well.
Production
In a bonus feature included with the DVD release of the film, Helen Hunt discusses her ten-year-long journey to get Elinor Lipman's novel to the screen. After first reading it she tried to interest numerous studios in the material, and her unsuccessful efforts led her to begin writing the screenplay and raising funds to produce it herself. Longtime friend Matthew BroderickMatthew Broderick
Matthew Broderick is an American film and stage actor who, among other roles, played the title character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Adult Simba in The Lion King film series, and Leo Bloom in the film and Broadway productions of The Producers.He has won two Tony Awards, one in 1983 for his...
agreed to play the relatively small role of Ben for scale, and his commitment inspired Hunt to approach Bette Midler
Bette Midler
Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...
and Colin Firth
Colin Firth
SirColin Andrew Firth, CBE is a British film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice...
, who were impressed by her passion for the project and agreed to work for minimum pay as well. Although she originally did not intend to portray April, Hunt decided casting herself in the role ultimately would lighten her work load as a director since she would have one less performance to help mold.
Janeane Garofalo
Janeane Garofalo
Janeane Garofalo is an American stand-up comedian, actress, political activist and writer. She is the former co-host on the now defunct Air America Radio's The Majority Report. Garofalo continues to circulate regularly within New York City's local comedy and performance art scene.-Early...
and Tim Robbins
Tim Robbins
Timothy Francis "Tim" Robbins is an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, activist and musician. He is the former longtime partner of actress Susan Sarandon...
make brief cameo appearance
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
s as themselves.
The film was shot on location in Brooklyn, including the waterfront community of Gerritsen Beach
Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn
Gerritsen Beach is a small town/community in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, located near Marine Park and Sheepshead Bay. The area is served by Brooklyn Community Board 15.-Geography:...
, and Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. Interiors were filmed at Steiner Studios
Steiner Studios
Steiner Studios is the largest film and television production studio complex outside of Hollywood. Steiner Studios offers of soundstages, with air conditioning and power infrastructure, and an additional of offices, dressing and make-up rooms, mill shops, spray booths, prop lock-ups, etc. All...
in the Brooklyn Navy Yard
Brooklyn Navy Yard
The United States Navy Yard, New York–better known as the Brooklyn Navy Yard or the New York Naval Shipyard –was an American shipyard located in Brooklyn, northeast of the Battery on the East River in Wallabout Basin, a semicircular bend of the river across from Corlear's Hook in Manhattan...
.
The film's soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
includes "For You" by Duncan Sheik
Duncan Sheik
Duncan Scott Sheik is an American singer-songwriter and composer. Sheik initially found success as a singer, most notably for his 1996 debut single "Barely Breathing". He later expanded his work to include compositions for motion pictures and the Broadway stage, leading him to involvement in the...
, "In The Red" by Tina Dickow, "I'll Say I'm Sorry Now" by Shawn Colvin
Shawn Colvin
Shawn Colvin is an American singer-songwriter and musician.-Childhood and early career:Colvin was born in Vermillion, South Dakota. Her formative years were spent in the town of Carbondale, Illinois, where she attended Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She learned to play guitar at the age...
, "Naked As We Came" by Iron & Wine
Iron & Wine
Samuel Beam , better known by his stage and recording name Iron & Wine, is an American singer-songwriter. He has released four studio albums, several EPs and singles, as well as a few download-only releases, which include a live album...
, and "Cool, Clear Water" by Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...
.
The film premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
. It was shown at numerous 2008 film festivals, including the Palm Springs International Film Festival
Palm Springs International Film Festival
Palm Springs International Film Festival is a film festival held in Palm Springs, California. It was started in 1989 and is held annually in January...
, the Portland International Film Festival, the Boulder International Film Festival
Boulder International Film Festival
Boulder International Film Festival sponsored by the Colorado Film Society, is held annually on Presidents Day Weekend in Boulder, Colorado USA, and has developed a reputation as one of the most influential young film festivals in the U.S., with an extraordinary number of new-but-unknown feature...
, the Cleveland International Film Festival
Cleveland International Film Festival
The Cleveland International Film Festival, first held in 1977, is the largest film festival in Ohio. The 2010 festival featured over 300 films. Since 1991 the festival has been held at Tower City Cinemas in downtown Cleveland.-Roxanne T...
, South by Southwest
South by Southwest
South by Southwest is an Austin, Texas based company dedicated to planning conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. Their current roster of annual events include: SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco and take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States...
, and the Ashland Independent Film Festival
Ashland Independent Film Festival
The Ashland Independent Film Festival is a film festival in Ashland, Oregon, United States that has been presented by the non-profit Southern Oregon Film Society since 2001. Founded by D.W. and Steve Wood, the festival is held each spring over five days at the Varsity Theatre in downtown Ashland...
before going into limited theatrical release in New York City and Los Angeles on April 25, 2008. It earned $72,594 on nine screens on its opening weekend and eventually grossed $3,735,717 in the US and $4,406,520 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $8,142,237.
Cast
- Helen HuntHelen HuntHelen Elizabeth Hunt is an American actress, film director, and screenwriter. She starred in the sitcom Mad About You for seven years, before being cast in the romantic comedy As Good as It Gets...
as April Epner - Bette MidlerBette MidlerBette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...
as Bernice Graves - Colin FirthColin FirthSirColin Andrew Firth, CBE is a British film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice...
as Frank - Matthew BroderickMatthew BroderickMatthew Broderick is an American film and stage actor who, among other roles, played the title character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Adult Simba in The Lion King film series, and Leo Bloom in the film and Broadway productions of The Producers.He has won two Tony Awards, one in 1983 for his...
as Ben Green - Ben ShenkmanBen ShenkmanBenjamin Shenkman is an American television, film and stage actor.-Life and career:Shenkman was born in New York City and raised in what he described as "the secular Eastern European Jewish tradition". He graduated from Brown University, and obtained a Masters of Fine Arts in 1993 from New York...
as Dr. Freddy Epner - Salman Rushdie as Dr. Masani
- John Benjamin HickeyJohn Benjamin HickeyJohn Benjamin Hickey is an American actor with a career in stage, film and television. He won the 2011 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play for his performance as Felix Turner in The Normal Heart....
as Alan - Lynn CohenLynn CohenLynn Cohen is an American actress. She is probably best known for playing Magda in the HBO series Sex and the City and the 2008 film of the same name. She has also played Judge Elizabeth Mizener several times on Law & Order, and has appeared in the movies Munich, Vanya on 42nd Street, Synecdoche,...
as Trudy Epner
Critical reception
Critical response to the film was mixed, and it received a 50% rating on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. Whereas some critics praised the film for having strong performances, others felt the film was bogged down by a weak script and technical issues.
Stephen Holden of the New York Times said that "Ms. Hunt takes every opportunity to avoid easy comic shtick and cutesy-poo sentimentality in an effort to make her characters act and sound like real people . . . you can feel [her], both as director and actor, discarding sitcom
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
conventions to shoot for something deeper and truer. And she achieves it, mostly through the shaded performances of Mr. Firth and Ms. Midler, as well as her own."
David Edwards of the Daily Mirror, on the other hand, said "the main problem is one of tone, the movie shifting between pale sitcom humour and sloppy romantic overtures, making for an uneven and unfulfilling experience."
Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
observed, "You would think that frontloading Then She Found Me with so much plot would make it play like a soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
. But Hunt saves the movie from this fate in two ways. First she turns in a touchingly real performance, the best of her big-screen career. Forget that As Good as It Gets
As Good as It Gets
As Good as It Gets is a 1997 American romantic comedy film directed by James L. Brooks and produced by Laura Ziskin. It stars Jack Nicholson as a misanthropic, obsessive-compulsive novelist, Helen Hunt as a single mother with an asthmatic son, and Greg Kinnear as a gay artist. The screenplay was...
won her an Oscar
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
. She's eons better and more realistic in this one . . . By directing Then She Found Me, Helen becomes its savior as well . . . Hunt knows when to rein in the Divine Miss M instead of allowing her to go into full Kabuki
Kabuki
is classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing , dance , and skill...
mode . . .[She] also coaxes pitch-perfect performances from Broderick and Firth."
Richard Roeper
Richard Roeper
Richard E. Roeper is an American columnist and film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times and now a co-host on The Roe Conn Show on WLS-AM...
of Ebert & Roeper
Ebert & Roeper
At the Movies was a movie review television program produced by Disney-ABC Domestic Television in which two film critics shared their opinions of newly released films. The program aired under various names...
called the film "consistently mediocre" and said it "practically invites you to forget about it two days after you’ve seen it."
John Anderson of the Washington Post disagreed, saying "Hunt directs a lot of this like a TV movie, and the music by the estimable David Mansfield is used to frog-march the film's emotional content, rather than letting it simply enhance the proceedings . . . Then She Found Me suffers from, if anything, a lack of pure confidence in the story, the actors or the audience."
Carina Chocano of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
called the film "unexpectedly sharp, light and appealing," "a testament to Hunt's skills behind the camera," and "a low-key, rather consoling fantasy deftly masquerading as way-we-live-now slice of life." Although she felt Hunt as April was a "slight casting misstep," she thought "all in all, Then She Found Me is a warm, entertaining and well-made little movie and an auspicious debut for Hunt the director."
Awards and nominations
Helen Hunt was presented with the Audience Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival and the Rogue Award at the Ashland Independent Film Festival.DVD release
The DVD was released in anamorphic widescreenAnamorphic widescreen
Anamorphic widescreen, when applied to DVD manufacture, is a video process that horizontally squeezes a widescreen image so that it can be stored in a standard 4:3 aspect ratio DVD image frame. Compatible playback equipment can then re-expand the horizontal dimension to show the original widescreen...
format on September 2, 2008. The English audio track is in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital is the name for audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. It was originally called Dolby Stereo Digital until 1994. Except for Dolby TrueHD, the audio compression is lossy. The first use of Dolby Digital was to provide digital sound in cinemas from 35mm film prints...
, and there are subtitles in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
for the hearing impaired
Hearing impairment
-Definition:Deafness is the inability for the ear to interpret certain or all frequencies of sound.-Environmental Situations:Deafness can be caused by environmental situations such as noise, trauma, or other ear defections...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
. Bonus features include director's commentary with Helen Hunt, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film, cast interviews, and the original trailer.