Corpus Christi Caller-Times TV/Radio by Elaine Liner, media critic

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Elaine Liner is Caller-Times' media critic. Her columns are published Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. She has been known to occasionally gossip with her readers in the Elaine Liner Forum. Elaine can be reached at linere@caller.com

Saturday, March 4, 2000

'The Next Best Thing' is a mind-puzzling cliche

Everett, Bratt are shining stars keeping movie afloat; Madonna's acting, British accent unbecoming

Questions jotted in the dark while watching the Madonna/Rupert Everett movie "The Next Best Thing" (now playing):

When did Madonna decide to become British? She tries to speak with the clipped upward inflection that poncy Brits use. But she can't keep it up consistently so ends up sounding like a refugee from Detroitinghamshire.

When did Madonna cap over the famous gap in her two front teeth?

Why did the film have to hammer at the point that this straight woman and gay man would have to be falling down drunk before falling in bed together? If Abby and Robert (Madonna and Everett) really had as many cocktails as they're shown swilling onscreen, they'd have both been in danger of alcohol poisoning but in no danger at all of consummating their friendship.

Does no cliche go unturned when a gay man is a major character in a feature film? There ARE homosexual men who DON'T love Judy Garland, Betty Hutton, Ethel Merman, feather boas, orchid plants, vacuuming and calling each other "Mary." But perhaps director John Schlesinger has never met them.
   And thus did the mind wander during "The Next Best Thing," a fizzled mess of a romantic comedy about a cutesy family unit comprised of a yoga instructor (Madonna), a gay gardener (Everett) and the cute little tyke (Malcolm Stumpf) they accidentally created after dancing to show tunes one drunken July 4.
   Everett, a versatile British actor whose crisp timing and effortless charm are put to better use in "The Ideal Husband" (out on video), tries to keep it all afloat. But the movie is torn asunder by the mugging Madonna, who seems to equate the aforementioned fake British accent with actual acting.
   The only nice surprise in "Next Best Thing" is Benjamin Bratt, who enters in the second half as the hunky hetero who sweeps the yoga-mama off her feet and out of the gay friend's house. Bratt's a good actor, deserving of a better vehicle than this. But he's supposed to be playing the world's nicest guy. So why doesn't the character object to the nasty way his new love acts in the custody battle?
   Weak acting, poor writing, an implausible plot twist that calls into question the paternity of the kid . . . it all goes to court in the end, long after the premise of the movie has gone to heck.

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