Kate Hudson does little to raise 'Helen'Costar Joan Cusack helps keep the film a likable affair.
Starring Kate Hudson as a flirty New York fashionista who assumes custody of her sister's three children, Raising Helen feels like an edited-for-network sequel to the cable series Sex and the City. One might call this mostly likable dramedy from Garry Marshall Love in the Boroughs. The film follows Manhattan party girl Helen to Queens, where rents are affordable, and where she learns to care as much about her charges as her career, and as much about making school lunches as making the scene.
Starring Kate Hudson as a flirty New York fashionista who assumes custody of her sister's three children, Raising Helen feels like an edited-for-network sequel to the cable series Sex and the City. One might call this mostly likable dramedy from Garry Marshall Love in the Boroughs.
The film follows Manhattan party girl Helen to Queens, where rents are affordable, and where she learns to care as much about her charges as her career, and as much about making school lunches as making the scene.
In its populist tone and texture the film is reminiscent of Marshall's 1984 charmer, The Flamingo Kid, in which the lead blazes a path between his working-class origins and his upper-class aspirations.
Along with class conflict, Raising Helen also offers sibling tension, with flinty Jenny (Joan Cusack) as the older, responsible sister to flighty Helen.
What Raising Helen doesn't offer is a competent (never mind compelling) performance from Hudson, who is as cute as lace pants and has approximately as much acting skill.
She made a memorable first impression in Almost Famous. But if there's anything beneath the golden ringlets or behind the dancing eyes, Hudson has yet to reveal it. She is all halo, no heart.
Cast opposite Hudson is John Corbett, the groom in My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Carrie's one-time fiance in Sex and the City, an actor who combines personability with utter lack of personality. Here he plays Pastor Dan, a wisecracking clergyman and principal of the school where Helen enrolls her nephew and nieces. "Do you know what vespers is?" tests Pastor Dan. "A scooter?" Helen answers, hopefully.
The movie could have used a lot more character development and a lot less star quality, but it says something about Marshall's film that it survives the generic performances of its leads.
What I appreciate about Marshall's films (and those of his kid sister, Penny) is his essential humanism. His love of his characters is contagious, especially when he shows their unlovable aspects. The three young actors who play the orphans thrust into Helen's care are each good, particularly Spencer Breslin, who apparently came through the ordeal of The Cat in the Hat with his humor and spirit intact.
Marshall is best with Cusack's Jenny, a supermom who, eight months pregnant with her third, is already setting limits for her fetus. ("Don't kick while I'm talking!" she instructs.) Jenny is bossy and a busybody and a multitasker who can knit a sweater while cooking a three-course banquet for the family on Mother's Day, but she's also a recognizable person.
The film's best sequence is an elliptical conversation between Jenny and Helen's helpful neighbor, Nilma (Sakina Jaffrey), in which they speak Mom to each other, a tough-love lingo that Helen learns reluctantly.
Helen has its moments. Too bad Hudson isn't part of them.
Contact movie critic Carrie Rickey
at 215-854-5402 or crickey@phillynews.com.
Raising Helen
** (out of four stars)
Produced by Ashok Amritraj and David Hoberman, directed by Garry Marshall, written by Jack Amiel and Michael Begler, photography by Charles Minsky, music by John Debney, distributed by Touchstone Pictures.
Running time: 1 hour, 59 mins.
Helen. . . Kate Hudson
Pastor Dan . . . John Corbett
Jenny. . . Joan Cusack
Audrey. . . Hayden Panettiere
Nilma. . . Sakina Jaffrey
Parent's guide: PG-13 (sexual themes)
Playing at: area theaters