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Year One
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Next Best Thing, The

Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 3 votes
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Tom Ropelewski
Directed by: John Schlesinger
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 3, 2000
DVD: August 29, 2000
Running Time: 108 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for mature thematic elements, sexual content, partial nudity and language
Starring Rupert Everett, Madonna, Benjamin Bratt, and Michael Vartan
A story about best friends, one a single straight woman (Madonna) the other a gay man (Everett). One night they get drunk...she gets pregnant...and the two decide to form a family despite their sexual preferences.
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...
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Characters behave arbitrarily and incredibly, and a clumsy resolution brings the film to a thudding halt.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Not even Rupert Everett is able to breathe life into soapy Thing.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
Really two movies in one, and there's not enough breathing room for both of them.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
That's a few too many agendas for one film.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
A garage sale of gay issues, harnessed to a plot as exhausted as a junkman's horse.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
A misguided romantic serio-comedy aimed at women and gay men that ends up caricaturing both.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
Screenwriter Ropelewski piles one silly plot contrivance upon another, and the characters start behaving like nitwits.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
The whole thing becomes a very rickety and contrived tearjerker.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ernest Hardy
No one ever turns into a real character, and none of the scenes have either dramatic or comedic resonance.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
The moment the movie loses its lighthearted spirit is the moment it loses touch with reality
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Andy Klein
Nobody involved will want to make this banal "comedy" a highlight of their résumé, not if they have any sense.
Read Full Review >Film.com Robert Horton
A dismal film, a flop as both 21st-century romantic comedy and gay "Kramer vs. Kramer."
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Gerlinde V. gave it a 10:
Unlike the critics say this is a very good movie.I enjoyed it very much and it's one of my favorite movies of all time!
Patkica gave it a 10:
I think this movie is great.
