Product Details

• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (110 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0792166744

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

You'd be hard-pressed to find a modern-day couple as impossibly glamorous as Rupert Everett and Madonna; their casting as common folk in the gay-parenting drama The Next Best Thing is just one of the film's myriad problems. (One thing we never needed to see was these two pushing grocery carts in a supermarket. It's just unnatural.) Best friends in sun-dappled L.A. (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 characterizations (even the kid does yoga), the faults in The Next Best Thing aren't solely on the shoulders of its miscast stars, but rather the painfully inept screenplay by Tom Ropelewski. 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 Thing certainly isn't it. --Mark Englehart

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Take a deep breath, relax - and enjoy!, December 7, 2005

By 

Carl Sommer "Carl Sommer" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Next Best Thing (DVD)

Have you ever bought at the stock market when everybody told you to sell - and won? That's what happened to me with this film. After buying almost all of John Schlesinger's films, I hesistated before ordering this one - in view of all that criticism. But then I assumed that - 1) Schlesinger cannot suddenly make a bad film after making so many excellent ones, and - 2) if so many bad things are said about a film it must somehow be good. Luckily, I was right this time.

Perhaps much of all that criticism springs from unjustified expectations. Let me try to put two points right: First: this is not a film about Madonna, or by Madonna. She is just an actress here - and a good one, just right for the part. Schlesinger does not present her as a singer or a sex symbol - but as a person. Secondly: Nobody has made a promise that this will be an in-depth, politically correct exploration of gay life. This is just a film - and an entertaining one. There is no law in the land that says a gay person cannot be a times a trifle ridiculous or sentimental, like other persons.

Therefore I recommend you follow the advice Madonna gives in her part as a Yoga teacher: Take a deep breath and relax - just enjoy this as another very good Schlesinger film - a real work of art.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Pretty bad, September 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Next Best Thing (VHS Tape)

So... I certainly respect everyone's right to have their own opinion, but it boggles my mind how so many of the reviewers seemed to love this film! It was pretty darned bad. While Madonna's "I'm british, no I'm not" accent was somewhat entertaining, her character's complete personality shift 2/3 of the way through made no sense and totally pushed the rest of this already mediocre film downhill. If you think this plot was a good idea, but you want to experience *some* entertainment from it, go rent "The Object Of My Affection."

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Total bust in all directions, October 11, 2002

By 

Tanya Jasmine Tucker (India Hook, SC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Next Best Thing (DVD)

I had some respect for Madonna before I saw this. But -- no more! If they had set out to make a movie with three characters -- a quintessential "today's woman, a gay man, and a stereotypical stock-character arrogant, self-centered jerk of a "straight" man, then trying to make them equal by making everybody look bad, they could have hardly done a better job than with this film! No heroes or heroines here -- everybody just double-crosses everybody. If they had tried to make it into a zany comdedy after the manner of A FISH CALLED WANDA or the more slapstick parts of MR. DEEDS, they might have had some success. But as is, THE NEXT BEST THING tries to be a serious movie without any real redeeming value. The line that stands out most in my memory is when Madonna's character expresses disappointment in her gay friend by saying, "As a gay man, I expected better from you." So much for not putting people "on pedestals" and so much for any thought that equality really means equality! What COULD this be the next best thing to? Yeast infections maybe?