I've often wondered what causes a film to flounder. Do the people involved know that it's bad? Do they actually work hard to change what is going wrong, or do they just idly sit back in anticipation of their obscenely large paychecks?
Unfortunately, "The Next Best Thing" gives no answers to those questions - but it does offer another example of the quintessential bad movie.
Where exactly does director John Schlesinger (who won an Oscar 30 years ago for "Midnight Cowboy") go wrong? In too many places to list completely in the small space given here. So I'll stick to the highlights.
Let's start with the beginning. Abbie (Madonna, at her worst here) is a yoga instructor who has just lost another boyfriend, Kevin, (Michael Vartan). He claims she is too complicated and high-strung for him to handle. Too bad that's a side we hardly get to see.
We know his exit is just the latest in a series of such walk-outs because Abbie runs to her best friend, Robert (Rupert Everett), and he knows how to comfort her. One of his early lines is "If I were you - and I practically am...." Gems like this cloud Thomas Ropelewski's clunky screenplay.
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Did I forget to mention that Robert is gay? Not to worry, the film doesn't. Ropelewski makes a gay joke or reference at every opportunity. What's bothersome is not the fact that they're insulting, but merely derivative. Was debating who played a better Annie Oakley the best he could do?
Cut to the funeral of one of Abbie and Robert's best friends, who has died of AIDS. Whether he was the boyfriend of Robert or of another friend, played well by Neil Patrick Harris, is one of many ambiguities here - most likely because of a series of sloppy rewrites.
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After the funeral (and way too many drinks), Abbie and Robert find comfort in each other's arms. In the requisite movie time, the two fight, Abbie learns she is pregnant, she and Robert make up, and the two decide to raise their child together under one roof.
It doesn't take long to see where this "Thing" is going. In fact, Abbie's pregnancy and the first six years of son Sam's (Malcolm Stumpf) life only constitute about 10 minutes of running time.
We miss out on the most interesting part of this life-altering decision, as Abbie goes from co-dependent to caregiver. We also don't see Robert's anguished choice to continue a series of empty sexual encounters with other men, sacrificing intimacy for Sam's sake (it's a decision that haunts him through the latter part of the movie). And Schlesinger gives short shrift to a subplot where Robert makes amends with his semi-prejudiced dad (Josef Sommer).
Stability actually threatens to rock Abbie and Robert's cradle of love with the arrival of Ben (Benjamin Bratt). We know he is Abbie's Mr. Right not because they share any chemistry, but because the static script dictates that they do so. However, it ignites a series of complications so insultingly manipulative that they completely change our perception of Abbie.
Not that Madonna does much to abet that. Most of her scenes look effortlessly effortless, as though she weren't even trying to be convincing or passionate. As a result, Abbie comes off as colorless and shallow as her performance.
Luckily, "Thing" is really Everett's film, and he gives an assured turn so delicate and subtle that he compensates for his co-star.
Everett has recently been embroiled in a controversy with the Writer's Guild of America; he claims he deserves screenwriting credit because many of the film's plot points were his idea. Frankly, if I were him, I'd deny any involvement with the development of the film.
That's the next best thing to not having been involved with this movie at all.
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