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88
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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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66
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59
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54
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79
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64
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69
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You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Raising Helen

Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 34 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 27 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama | Romance
Written by:
Jack Amiel
Michael Begler
Patrick J. Clifton (story)
Bethany Rigazio (story)
Directed by: Garry Marshall
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 26, 2004
DVD: October 12, 2004
Running Time: 119 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for thematic issues involving teens
Starring Kate Hudson, John Corbett, Joan Cusack, Hayden Panettiere, Spencer Breslin, Abigail Breslin, Helen Mirren, and Felicity Huffman
Helen Harris's carefree lifestyle comes to a screeching halt when she learns that she is now responsible for her sister's three children. She comes to realize that the choice she has to make is between the life she's always loved and the new loves of her life. (Touchstone Pictures)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Georgia Rule Pretty Woman Runaway Bride The Other Sister The Princess Diaries The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden
Marshall's predilection for romantic fairy tales is much in evidence, though the comedy registers in a lower key than it did in such hits as "Pretty Woman" and "Runaway Bride."
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Peter Debruge
There's an old-school innocence to Marshall's style, and it's satisfying to be whisked away from reality to this parallel universe where we find it possible to laugh amid such a fundamentally tragic scenario.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
The actors are all better than the material, just as the script's occasionally amusing tangents are far superior to its mundane narrative arc.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Hudson's sunny, ringlet-tossing appeal fits snugly into the film's happy-homemaker ideology: She makes caring for three kids she barely knows look downright glamorous.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Mark Caro
You can take the director out of television, but sometimes you can't take television out of the director. Although Garry Marshall has been making movies for longer than he spent creating such series as "The Odd Couple," "Happy Days" and "Laverne and Shirley," his work retains the scent of the small screen.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
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.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
Almost nothing about Raising Helen rings very true, other than the camera's crush on Kate Hudson.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Watching Garry Marshall's Raising Helen is like eating a box of Forrest Gump's chocolates. You may not know exactly what you're going to get, but you can count on a high sugar content.
Read Full Review >New York Post Jonathan Foreman
Doesn't press all its obvious lessons, and there are actually a few surprises -- and even a couple of moving and interesting moments -- before an all too predictable resolution.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
A soft-hearted, squishy-minded prototype for a network sitcom, is mildly ingratiating but never laugh-out-loud funny. Even Ms. Hudson's intrepid radiance can't camouflage the premise's leaky foundation.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
From beginning to end, we've been there, seen that.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
As unlikely as it may sound, 2004 is the year when directors Kevin Smith and Garry Marshall have made virtually the same movie...Nevertheless, it's impossible to deny that Raising Helen is a near clone of "Jersey Girl."
Read Full Review >Salon.com Charles Taylor
If a couple who belonged to the Christian Coalition, or your maiden aunt, or George and Laura Bush were looking for a reassuring night out, Raising Helen would fit the bill nicely.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
Far from the worst cookie-cutter film to come off the Hollywood assembly line, merely the latest.
Read Full Review >Premiere Laine Ewen
It's really rather dull, lacking in any originality or flair that might draw attention to the cause. It's lightly comedic, lightly dramatic, lightly tragic, and, therefore, lightly entertaining.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust
The agreeable cast led by Hudson and Cusack manage to extract a handful of laughs from the forgettable dialogue, but at nearly two hours, the film goes on far too long.
Read Full Review >Empire Liz Beardsworth
Top marks to Joan Cusack for her excellent supporting turn; commiserations to John Corbett as one-dimensional objet désir Pastor Dan -- unhappily saddled with the most tragic line to reach mainstream film for years.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Angel Cohn
The kids, especially the Breslin siblings, are cute. Cusack is underused, but makes her annoying, potpourri-loving suburban mom seem sympathetic. And Corbett is well-cast as an eminently suitable, if slightly dull, life mate for the newly grown-up Helen.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
The strange thing about Raising Helen is that nothing out of the ordinary ever really happens.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Raising Helen is the kind of movie you watch on a plane while muttering utter crap under your breath -- and then burst into tears.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
Sitting through Raising Helen is an exercise in frustration, because somewhere inside this big heap of Hollywood nothing is a something (someone, actually) worth saving and savoring. Her name is Joan Cusack.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jessica Winter
John Corbett shuffles in for yet another tour of duty as the bland requisite love interest.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
By the end, this movie's balancing act is the equivalent of network news' equal-time laws. The "fairness" becomes deadening.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Works so hard to be inoffensive that you may well be offended.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Staff (Not credited)
The picture flogs a fake dichotomy between career and family for 119 minutes until Hudson digests a feeble moral that Laverne and Shirley would have covered in 25.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Ms. Hudson makes the most of her role, even though that's not saying so very much -- the writing is terribly thin -- while John Corbett gives an unaccountably clumsy performance as a romantic pastor. Joan Cusack gets the funniest lines as Helen's sister, a model of boring mommyhood, but she also stops the movie dead in its tracks every time she plays a scene.
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
You are likely to encounter more surprises on the way to the bathroom each morning than you do in this film.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
Theres nothing especially offensive about the actress (Hudson); if anything, its that lack of offense, her overwhelmingly benign vibe, that has become increasingly repugnant with every picture she puts out.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
It's a question of tone, which jumps back and forth between airy-fairy romantic comedy and leaden family drama with the alacrity of a manic-depressive.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Great premise, but the ensuing trials and tribulations - not to mention hapless attempts at comedy - are as off-key as a karaoke scene in which Hudson sounds worse than any audition Simon Cowell has ever had to sit through.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Despite Joan Cusack, whose comic spark earns the film its only star, Raising Helen is like tumbling into chick-flick hell.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
This goopy dramedy is unfunny, mentally bankrupt and makes parenthood look like a terrifying death sentence.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.9 (out of 10) based on 27 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Gareth C gave it a0:
What a load of bollocks. God, this is a very bad movie. The script is sooo cheesy! Wake up Hollywood, this C-rate attempt at film making is in dire need of originality.
mitch m. gave it a3:
Chick flick hell indeed. But with tons of sugar on it. I'm ashamed to say I sat through the whole thing. Where was I gonna go?
Lockne O. gave it a 7:
Raising Helen is a fun, feel-good movie. Kate Hudson has great chemistry with the kids and is having fun throughout the film. Not Oscar-worthy, but still a decent flick.
Danoman G. gave it a 3:
Sucks big time, even for a 'girly movie'...
Lauren S. gave it a 7:
This is a really cute movie. verry sappy at times but still really cute. bring tissues! its a tear jerker!
Lora R. gave it a 10:
I loved this movie.
[Anonymous] gave it a 10:
A plus.
