The Next Best Thing (2000)

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

There are many films that I have rated 1 out of 10 that do not deserve the shame of being equated with this film. I am a very ardent Madonna fan; however, this is easily the worst film that I have ever seen. The script and the performances were so bad in spots that I felt nauseous with embarrassment. I couldn't look at the screen. My eyes went south and I was left with Madonna's voice sounding through the screen slipping nightmarishly in and out of a British accent. The plot was poor to begin with but the film was so badly put together that large time lapses left you confused and disoriented. Friends-jump-lovers-jump-enemies-jump-court-jump-friends-huh? what? Do yourself a favour- never, ever, ever watch this film. Unless you've always wondered, just how bad a movie can be. For all of those films that I've rated with one star (Xanadu, JAWS:The Revenge, etc...), I'm sorry; you are much better than this film.

Hundreds of years from now, I imagine historians and archeologists, not to mention film preservationists, will spend years and years gazing in puzzled horror at Madonna's body of film. It will evoke feelings similar to the nausea, fear and disbelief we feel now while studying Mayan hieroglyphics of wholesale human sacrifice and ritual slaughter. Only much less interesting, naturally. What is it about Madonna? In movie after movie we have to endure the excruciating process of her struggling with all her might to bring a human emotion to her face. This Herculean labor, brought to its absolute zenith in Evita, but not much abated here, may be great fun for afficionados of porn acting, but for the rest of us: sheer torture. Then there's her voice. She delivers her lines like a tenth-grader playing Hamlet's mother, but with less conviction. Madonna seems entirely incapable of expressing intelligence or emotion, but if she would just let her hair down and act like the good old all-American tramp she is, all might be forgiven. Alas, she seems to have some curious delusions of grandeur. She is the most self-conscious bad actor who ever disgraced a movie screen, and yet she doesn't have the nerve to be camp. Is it possible to be wooden and plastic at the same time? Madonna manages to make Jenna Jameson look like Judi Dench. The movie? Couldn't tell you a thing about it.

Mercilessly condemned by viewers and professional critics, this comedy-drama is not very good; but I have seen films that are a lot worse. A young woman named Abbie (Madonna), who is straight, has a one-night fling with her best friend Robert (Rupert Everett), who is gay. The result is that she gets pregnant. Abbie and Robert agree to raise the child together; but complications ensue when Abbie falls in love with someone else.The first part of the film is lighthearted, and plays like a music video, with some good songs, like "Steppin' Out With My Baby". By the time we get into the second half, however, the lightheartedness has morphed into bitterness and controversy, a change in tone that is jarringly out of sync with earlier sequences.But an even bigger problem is the casting of the two leads, and the Robert character. Madonna tries hard to be a convincing Abbie; her performance isn't bad, really it isn't; she's just a little too wooden. But her celebrity persona as a musical pop star overwhelms all effort to make her seem like some average homebody. As a result, I would have preferred another actress.I did not care for Robert at all, with his exaggerated attempts at witty banter and his fluttering about, typical gay stereotyped behavior, vain and self-absorbed. Later, he becomes rigid in his ability to compromise, a character contrivance that only serves to advance the film's plot. And then Rupert Everett, with his hammy overacting, makes the already flamboyant Robert character almost unendurable. Everett's British accent in a Southern California setting is totally out of place. Almost any other actor of comparable age could have rendered a less painful performance.What makes the film bearable is some good music, including Don McClean's old song "American Pie", and a nifty performance by Malcolm Stumpf as the child, a performance that was thankfully lacking in precocious behavior so often seen in child characters.If they had reworked the script in such a way as to have a more consistent storyline, toned down the Robert character, and chosen different performers for the two lead roles, "The Next Best Thing" might have been better received. As is, the film is interesting mainly for its music, and as a textbook case of what can go wrong when script and casting mistakes are not corrected.

I really like this movie... I cried every time I watch it. And how can you do this with your body madonna? I have to start on yoga too. Love when she is on the mirror with. 26 years old... 36 years old... so lovely.I would like to ask you about the magnificent dress she wears , I want the same for me!!!Could someone please tell who's black and white madonna's dress in this movie? I really think is amazing!!!! you know the one she wears when they are in the house where he works because the people who lives in the house is on trip!well, thank you!!!!!