| 69 |
Mr. Showbiz
The two leads have a wonderful chemistry together.
|
| 63 |
Charlotte Observer
Characters behave arbitrarily and incredibly, and a clumsy resolution brings the film to a thudding halt.
|
| 63 |
Chicago Tribune
All too obvious, all too easy, the sort of tongue-in-chic L.A. comedy that mistakes glibness for high style, heartfelt pop choruses for wisdom.
|
| 50 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Has good intentions and the element of surprise -- it's never quite clear where it's going at any given point.
|
| 50 |
Austin Chronicle
If only someone had taken away that disastrous third act we'd have one of the better mainstream films dealing with the impossible societal demands put upon gay parenting yet made. No such luck, though.
|
| 50 |
New York Daily News
Not even Rupert Everett is able to breathe life into soapy Thing.
|
| 50 |
USA Today
Funny how Madonna borrows Everett, Julia Roberts' gay pal from "My Best Friend's Wedding," and Bratt, Roberts' real-life beau, to be her co-stars. If only she could borrow her talent.
|
| 50 |
Rolling Stone
Essentially an old-fashioned weepie gussied up for Y2K.
|
| 42 |
Entertainment Weekly
Steve Daly
(Madonna is) clearly full of good intentions; too bad she's lacking discernible emotions.
|
| 40 |
TV Guide
Cross an episode of "Friends" with an issue-of-the-week movie about gay parenthood and you have this glossy vanity project.
|
| 38 |
Baltimore Sun
Of Madonna's considerable talents, making the camera love her isn't one: The screen seems to go dead every time she's on it.
|
| 38 |
Boston Globe
Never having decided whether it wants to be comedy or a sentimental hand-wringer, it tries to be both and winds up being neither.
|
| 30 |
Variety
Likely lack of much critical enthusiasm or positive word-of-mouth will induce quick theatrical falloff, with better news likely down the line for rental merchants.
|
| 30 |
Washington Post
Really two movies in one, and there's not enough breathing room for both of them.
|
| 25 |
San Francisco Chronicle
That's a few too many agendas for one film.
|
| 25 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Contrived story lines and an altogether phony resolution erase whatever energy and wit the film displayed, leaving the viewer with an empty, disappointed feeling.
|
| 25 |
Miami Herald
A fluffy, feel-bad drama, with some serious things to say about the viability of homosexual men as fathers and role models.
|
| 25 |
New York Post
If the movie were funny, the implicit sermonizing would be more tolerable, but apart from four or five good one-liners, The Next Best Thing is a thudding failure as a comedy.
|
| 25 |
Chicago Sun-Times
A garage sale of gay issues, harnessed to a plot as exhausted as a junkman's horse.
|
| 25 |
Christian Science Monitor
The movie has a well-meaning message about love and loyalty being the bedrock of real family values, but its good intentions sag as the story trades its air of mischievous comedy for trite sentimentality, arbitrary plot twists, and enough maudlin melodramatics to sustain a tabloid TV series.
|
| 20 |
Los Angeles Times
A misguided romantic serio-comedy aimed at women and gay men that ends up caricaturing both.
|
| 20 |
Newsweek
Screenwriter Ropelewski piles one silly plot contrivance upon another, and the characters start behaving like nitwits.
|
| 20 |
Film.com
Doesn't even rise to the level of camp, of being so-bad-it's-good. It's just flat out bad.
|
| 20 |
Chicago Reader
The whole thing becomes a very rickety and contrived tearjerker.
|
| 20 |
LA Weekly
No one ever turns into a real character, and none of the scenes have either dramatic or comedic resonance.
|
| 16 |
Portland Oregonian
A resolutely awful film, it makes you want to swear off sex, comedy, Rupert Everett movies, flowers, yoga, children, roast beef -- many of the best things in life, in fact.
|
| 10 |
Salon.com
Takes so many wrong turns it's barely an also-ran. It isn't the next best thing at all. Not even close.
|
| 10 |
Village Voice
A vanity project -- hell-bent on playing barely human characters as themselves, they've created something quitebewilderingly ugly in the process.
|
| 10 |
The New York Times
The moment the movie loses its lighthearted spirit is the moment it loses touch with reality
|
| 10 |
Dallas Observer
Nobody involved will want to make this banal "comedy" a highlight of their résumé, not if they have any sense.
|
| 10 |
Film.com
A dismal film, a flop as both 21st-century romantic comedy and gay "Kramer vs. Kramer."
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