Bad Blogger, Bad Blogger!

I have been a horribly remorse blogger this summer. I took up running in the middle of May, and being the Type A personality I am, I’ve become kind of obsessive about it. I also hadn’t been to a lot of movies until early August, so very little inspired me to write. Now, though, I’m presenting myself with a challenge: Review every 2008 release I’ve seen in a theater or on DVD since the Tribeca Film Festival ended May 4 … in a maximum of five sentences per film. Gulp.

1) Then She Found Me (May 9)

Helen Hunt hasn’t stitched her writing and directorial debut, Then She Found Me, as neatly as one might hope, but the thought and care that went into the filmmaking bind the flick through any messiness. Hunt’s April Epner yearns to be a mother - a situation complicated by the end of her marriage to fellow teacher Ben (Matthew Broderick), a burgeoning relationship with a high-strung Colin Firth and the sudden reappearance of her birth mother, a drama-queen talk-show host (a relatively restrained Better Midler). Hunt doesn’t manage the emotions or storylines that steadily, but what she struggles with structurally she makes up for in details: a financially appropriate wardrobe for each character, for example, or visible strain as April’s emotional cauldron boils. Hunt also depicts something rarely seen in contemporary cinema: an openly observant Jewish woman, and April’s emphasis on her faith is deeply moving. Seek out Then She Found Me because, ultimately, it has something to say: about identity, religion, the many forms of motherhood, and what it means to be a woman.