It would be great if Kate Hudson began making really good movies, so we could measure just how far her spritzy talent goes. In the meantime, fans of Goldie Hawn’s lookalike blond daughter will have to make do with the likes of “Raising Helen,” a sitcom-style comedy.
And if this is a sitcom, it’s a “very special episode,” since it deals with death. Or at least it uses death as a major plot device.
Hudson plays Helen, a hotshot go-getter at a Manhattan modeling agency. This, like Jennifer Garner’s job in “13 Going on 30,” exists in order to demonstrate that the glamorous life is not all it’s cracked up to be. In case you were wondering.
Helen’s sister and brother-in-law die suddenly in a car accident, leaving behind three children. The kids get along great with their aunt Helen, but everybody expects them to be put in the care of the other aunt, humorless Joan Cusack, who’s an experienced mom.
But the late sister had other ideas, and Helen finds herself playing mother to the kids. They are a 15-year-old girl (Hayden Panetiere), who immediately falls in with older boys, a morose 10-year-old boy (Spencer Breslin) and a 5-year-old girl (Abigail Breslin) who won’t tie her shoelaces.
The wacky high jinks alternate with the sobering life lessons, pretty much on a clockwork schedule. Helen can’t manage the career, so she moves the kids to Queens and lands a position at a used-car dealership.
This stew is stirred by director Garry Marshall (“Pretty Woman”), who retains the TV level of his early sitcom days. That means the film is limited, but it also means Marshall still knows how to uncork a joke, and there are some acceptable ones here.
Marshall has long been drawn to the touchy-feely side of comedy, too, and there’s room for that as well. Hudson and the indomitable Joan Cusack butt heads over their radically different ideas on parenting.
Poor Cusack is cast as the frump here (she’s even got “the mom haircut”), but Marshall is smart enough to know you have to give Joan Cusack at least one over-the-top meltdown scene. She nails it, of course.
Also showing a deft comic touch is John Corbett, as a Lutheran minister attracted to Helen. Corbett, late of “Sex and the City,” is so laid back you almost don’t notice the jokes landing.
Kate Hudson has a capable way of keeping it real. The same can’t be said for “Raising Helen,” which takes the rough edges off reality. It does so expertly and sometimes charmingly, but it doesn’t leave much behind.
John Corbett and Kate Hudson star in “Raising Helen.”
“Raising Helen” HH
Fine, for a sitcom: Glamorous go-getter Kate Hudson inherits custody of her late sister’s three children. This situation is expertly done in some ways, but it reduces everything to a sitcom level, thanks to director Garry Marshall. Joan Cusack and John Corbett co-star.
Rated: G
Now showing: tk
“Raising Helen” HH
Fine, for a sitcom: Glamorous go-getter Kate Hudson inherits custody of her late sister’s three children. This situation is expertly done in some ways, but it reduces everything to a sitcom level, thanks to director Garry Marshall.Joan Cusack and John Corbett co-star.
Rated: G
Now showing: Everett 9, Galaxy, Grand, Marysville, Mountlake, Stanwood, Metro, Oak Tree, Pacific Place, Woodinville, Blue Fox Drive-In, Cascade.
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