Next Best Thing, The

Mr. Showbiz F. X. Feeney

The two leads have a wonderful chemistry together.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Characters behave arbitrarily and incredibly, and a clumsy resolution brings the film to a thudding halt.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

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.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Has good intentions and the element of surprise -- it's never quite clear where it's going at any given point.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

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.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Not even Rupert Everett is able to breathe life into soapy Thing.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

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.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Essentially an old-fashioned weepie gussied up for Y2K.

Entertainment Weekly Steve Daly

(Madonna is) clearly full of good intentions; too bad she's lacking discernible emotions.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Cross an episode of "Friends" with an issue-of-the-week movie about gay parenthood and you have this glossy vanity project.

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

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.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Never having decided whether it wants to be comedy or a sentimental hand-wringer, it tries to be both and winds up being neither.

Variety Dennis Harvey

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.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Really two movies in one, and there's not enough breathing room for both of them.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

That's a few too many agendas for one film.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Contrived story lines and an altogether phony resolution erase whatever energy and wit the film displayed, leaving the viewer with an empty, disappointed feeling.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

A fluffy, feel-bad drama, with some serious things to say about the viability of homosexual men as fathers and role models.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

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.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A garage sale of gay issues, harnessed to a plot as exhausted as a junkman's horse.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

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.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

A misguided romantic serio-comedy aimed at women and gay men that ends up caricaturing both.

Newsweek David Ansen

Screenwriter Ropelewski piles one silly plot contrivance upon another, and the characters start behaving like nitwits.

Film.com Ernest Hardy

Doesn't even rise to the level of camp, of being so-bad-it's-good. It's just flat out bad.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The whole thing becomes a very rickety and contrived tearjerker.

LA Weekly Ernest Hardy

No one ever turns into a real character, and none of the scenes have either dramatic or comedic resonance.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

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.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Takes so many wrong turns it's barely an also-ran. It isn't the next best thing at all. Not even close.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

A vanity project -- hell-bent on playing barely human characters as themselves, they've created something quitebewilderingly ugly in the process.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

The moment the movie loses its lighthearted spirit is the moment it loses touch with reality

Dallas Observer Andy Klein

Nobody involved will want to make this banal "comedy" a highlight of their résumé, not if they have any sense.

Film.com Robert Horton

A dismal film, a flop as both 21st-century romantic comedy and gay "Kramer vs. Kramer."