The Next Best Thing

Madonna--who surprised everyone with her great antic humor in Desperately Seeking Susan and A League of Their Own--is just goofy enough to be interesting here as a yoga teacher named Abbie, whose biological clock is ticking, while Rupert Everett, watering flowers and traveling contentedly in his gay Los Angeles circles, is the perfect (if inevitable) gay best buddy. After one absolutely delightful pre-amour dance sequence--a send-up of Astaire/Rogers duets in which Madonna and Everett quaff martinis and stumble around breaking furniture--the couple produce both a child and plenty of interesting subplots concerning Robert's new role as poppa. Unfortunately, like the Titanic heading for that ice floe, the movie ill advisedly chooses to zoom forward six years, trotting in Ben (Benjamin Bratt) as Madonna's first boyfriend since her pregnancy. When Abbie takes the kid off to New York with her boyfriend and locks with Robert in an ugly custody battle, the film not only moves far from its initial premise of an appealing character comedy, it devolves into disappointingly sexist tripe (women will do anything to catch a man). Not a necessary purchase. (K. G. Schneider)