Normally grading a movie of this sort is an easy job, you pretty much go in expecting a “B” effort that serves its purpose, nothing over the top and just the right amount of comedy and romance mixed in to give it that mass audience appeal. With Raising Helen I expected nothing different than what I just described as I had ignored looking at the running time of the film and just went in with the premise and an open mind. In turn what I received was a far too long film at two-hours in running time that never really finds its groove as it bounces around before finally settling down in the final minutes of the film.
Raising Helen is the story of Helen Harris (Hudson) who is living the high life in New York City as an executive assistant at a top modeling agency headed up by Helen Mirren. Things soon take a drastic turn as Helen finds herself caring for her sister’s three children after their mother and father pass away in a freak car accident. This comes as a huge shock, not only to Helen, but also to her older sister Jenny (Cusack) who is the self proclaimed “Super Mom”.
Helen accepts the challenge and soon finds herself having to make a choice between the free-wheeling lifestyle she is used to or becoming the mother figure she has been asked to be.
I will be the first to say that I think Kate Hudson is an excellent actress and choice for this film, not to mention she isn’t too bad on the eyes, but due to a script that never quite figures out what exactly it wants to have happen with the lives it has spawned you are left to wander aimlessly for two hours before the inevitable occurs.
Although Raising Helen does have a lot of great moments and good performances turned in by all it just can’t seem to find the right track. The story gets a bit too sappy even for a romantic comedy, and once it ends you are glad, which may have been avoided if they had trimmed the story down by about 15-30 minutes.
I am sure many of you are going to check this film out and enjoy it as it is not a film to hate, but overall I was disappointed as I expected more from Kate Hudson and certainly director Garry Marshall who has given us so much better before, such as one of my favorites, Pretty Woman.
