First-time writer-director Helen Hunt stars as April Epner, a schoolteacher desperate to have a child before she turns 40. (Hunt herself turns 45 this year, but never mind that.) Adapted by Hunt and two other writers from Elinor Lipman's novel, it's a confident debut. Hunt directs like she acts — straightforward and without humor, even when she's meant to be funny. Which is probably why this plays like such an odd hybrid: a sitcom pilot rendered as Lifetime melodrama and starring the likes of Matthew Broderick (as her man-child husband), Colin Firth (as the single-dad love interest) and Bette Midler (as the famous mother who gave Hunt's character up for adoption when she was a year old). Broderick — broad, doughy and dopey — is not at all believable as a supposedly irresistible lover. But Firth is terrific, and Midler is, well, Midler — you keep expecting her to break into song. Even if you didn't know who directed the movie going in, you'd know coming out; Hunt gives herself more close-ups than Barbra Streisand, no small feat. In short, it's the kind of film that only a mother, which is to say my mother, would love.
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