REVIEWED - RAISING HELEN: Shortly after the film begins, Kate Hudson's sister and brother-in-law are killed in a road traffic accident and the blonde socialite, who works for a model agency which still thinks it appropriate to play David Bowie's Fashion at catwalk shows, is called to a reading of the will, writes Donald Clarke.
There is, it transpires, a mysterious codicil. Kate and her other sister, an uptight shrew played by the ever-wonderful Joan Cusack, must remain for one night in a haunted house in order to inherit a great fortune.
Oh, you wish. What actually happens is that the dead woman's children are, to everyone's surprise, left in the care of the daffy, adorable (add any other Hudsonesque adjective that seems appropriate) Manhattan chick rather than the responsible, dull New Jersey mom. Kate's life gets turned upside down. She misses meetings. She allows her children to draw all over supermodels' faces. She embarrasses herself before the local Lutheran minister (who, being conveniently both dishy and from a religion that allows its clergy to marry, serves as love interest). I can't quite remember if there is a scene in which she nearly misses a school play because she has to be somewhere less cuddly, but let's assume as much.
Over and over again veteran director Garry Marshall inserts the same shot of Hudson, whose charm is starting to curdle badly, happening upon her supposedly infectious smile. It is rather like watching a home video shot by an older gentleman, not quite confident with this new-fangled camera thingy, of his most adored granddaughter.
Hollywood makes this film about twice a year. Indeed it was only last month that we had to endure Kevin Smith's even more revolting Jersey Girl. Just once it would be nice to have the protagonist decide that he or she genuinely cannot abide the messy little blighters and return happily to a life of taking cocaine in nightclub lavatories. Does that happen here? You wish.
