May 28, 2004 | Think of it as the movie-marketing version of bait and switch. The lobby posters and newspaper ads for Raising Helen show Kate sexy, in a reclining position that emphasizes her prominent assets. The provocative pose appears to promise something in the same saucy vein as last year’s How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days , a glossy romantic comedy that also showcased Hudson . But that promise isn’t fulfilled.
Instead, Raising Helen turns out to be an undemandingly pleasurable but instantly forgettable comedy-drama about a self-absorbed Manhattan career woman who grapples with the responsibilities of instant motherhood. Even though it’s rated PG-13, it’s fairly innocuous family-friendly entertainment, scarcely more salacious than a Disney Channel sitcom. And yet it’s being promoted with an advertising come-on that likely will turn off the very audiences that might enjoy it most. Meanwhile, the folks who are attracted by the ads will… well, let’s just say they’ll be less than satisfied.
Smoothly directed by Garry Marshall ( Pretty Woman , The Princess Diaries ), Raising Helen is yet another feel-good confection about an upscale workaholic who must detour from the rat race to find true happiness. You’ve seen this movie many times before, under many different titles – a few weeks ago, it was called Jersey Girl – but if you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you’ll like, especially if you’re looking for something you can see with your children and your parents. Indeed, in the very next edition of Webster’s Movie Dictionary , you’ll probably see a still from Raising Helen next to the definition of “pleasant.”
Helen Harris (Hudson) — personal assistant to Dominique (Helen Mirren), queenly head of a Manhattan modeling agency — is a go-go go-getter whose fast track leads through fashion shows, photo shoots and trendy nightclubs. In this, she is the polar opposite of her oldest sister, Jenny (Joan Cusack), a neo-Stepford Wife who approaches her duties as mother and homemaker with a rigor that borders on the control-freakish.
After their sister and brother-in-law are killed in an off-screen auto mishap, Jenny automatically assumes that she, not Helen, will be granted custody of late couple’s offspring when the final will and testament is read. But no: Their sister (fleetingly played by Felicity Huffman) assumed, perhaps rightly, that her children – boy-crazy adolescent Audrey (Hayden Panettiere), husky youngster Henry (Spencer Breslin) and moody moppet Sarah (Abigail Breslin, Spencer’s real-life sibling) – would be better off with a surrogate mom who’s not quite so tightly wound. Which is why the kids wind up with Aunt Helen.
Naturally, the new responsibilities place a severe crimp on Helen’s party-hearty lifestyle. Just as naturally, she very quickly loses her prestigious job after she’s forced to bring the children with her to a major fashion show. (Judging from this movie and Jersey Girl , there’s a serious lack of babysitters in the Manhattan area. Employment counselors, take note.) Helen takes the setbacks in stride, however, and moves with the kids to a cheaper, roomier apartment in Queens , where she eventually finds work at a used-car dealership.
To their credit, screenwriters Jack Amiel and Michael Begler are refreshingly realistic about socioeconomic details that too often are glossed over (or totally ignored) in lightweight comedy-dramas of this sort. And Marshall earns points for his slightly bemused but mostly mater-of-fact approach to developing a romance between Helen and a hunky Lutheran pastor (an agreeable John Corbett) who just happens to be principal of the private school where she enrolls the children.
In most other respects, however, Raising Helen is thoroughly predictable as it charts Helen’s evolution from blithely indulgent aunt to tough-loving mother. The funny bits prompt many chuckles, but relatively few big laughs. Worse, the movie’s final third has a drearily moralizing air as Cusack’s Jenny, a character who’s played for cheap laughs in early scenes, gradually emerges as a dead-serious and ineffably smug role model for the heretofore frivolous Helen. The underlying message – Helen shouldn’t try to be a friend to the kids, she should be a mother who sets rules and restrictions – wouldn’t have been out of place in a ’60s Disney comedy starring Fred MacMurray or Dean Jones. And while it may be a valid life lesson, it’s presented here with a heavy hand and a lecturing tone.
Fortunately for all parties concerned, Hudson generates enough good will in the first two-thirds to offset the sporadic preachiness. She’s effortlessly engaging in a performance that’s short on broad brushstrokes – she takes only one pratfall in the entire movie – and rich in sprightly charm. It will be hard to find someone equally appealing if, as seems all too likely, Raising Helen spawns a TV sitcom spin-o
