I think I’ve now arrived at the point where I no longer expect originality when it comes to movies. All you have to do is take a look at the biggest films of the summer so far to get an idea of what I mean: I can think of four films that are the third releases in a series, plus one that is the fifth of a seven-parter. There’s only so much originality you can inject into stories that feature the same characters over and over again. And of course, you don’t even have to be watching a franchise film to get hit with a worn-out concept; Raising Helen is a prime example of that.
Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Helen Harris (played by Kate Hudson) is a single woman with a successful and rewarding career at a fashion magazine in Manhattan. She’s good at her job, loves what she does, and seems to be enjoying her life to the fullest extent. Then one day that all changes as she’s informed of the deaths of her sister Lindsay (Felicity Huffman) and her brother-in-law Paul (Sean O’Bryan). Lindsay and Paul were tragically killed in a car accident, leaving behind their three children Audrey (Hayden Panettierre), Henry (Spencer Breslin), and Sarah (Abigail Breslin).
Helen agrees to take custody of the children for a few days until Lindsay and Paul’s wills can get sorted out. She brings the children to her Manhattan studio, requests some time off from work, and continues being the cool aunt that she has always been to Audrey, Henry, and Sarah. Meanwhile, Helen’s other sister Jenny (Joan Cusack) starts making preparations at her own home to receive the children. After all, Jenny is married, is already a mother, and is far more stable than Helen, so Lindsay and Paul undoubtedly have requested her to take over as the children’s legal guardian.
But then we wouldn’t have a movie called Raising Helen, would we? At the reading of the wills, Jenny and Helen discover that Lindsay chose Helen to raise her children for some reason. She left letters to both Jenny and Helen explaining her decision, but Jenny doesn’t seem satisfied with the reasoning. Nevertheless, she begrudgingly goes about helping Helen get set up with the kids for good.
This necessitates a move to a bigger apartment in Queens, as well as a search for a new school and a new job. Helen ends up enrolling the kids in a private Protestant school run by Pastor Dan (John Corbett) and she takes a job making $17.50/hr as a receptionist at a used car dealership (do receptionists really get paid that much?).
From there, the film shows how Helen deals with the ups and downs of parenthood as she tries to transform from the aunt who once congratulated her niece on getting a fake ID to the mother-figure who must now be a stricter rule enforcer than she’s ever been in her life. This inevitably leads to conflicts with the children, and Helen starts second-guessing her fitness to be their guardian. Was Helen the right choice to raise Lindsay’s children or should Jenny have been the first pick all along?
My Reaction As I said before, Raising Helen wasn’t very original at all. The whole plot was basically telegraphed right from the beginning and it was easy to predict what would happen during the course of the two-hour film. Although Kate Hudson brings a certain warm presence to the screen (much in the same way that Drew Barrymore does), I don’t think she’s at a point in her career where she can carry movies all on her own. Or, at the very least, she’s not choosing scripts that help showcase her talents very well.
This film wasn’t even entertaining, and I was annoyed at the way the script made Helen’s extreme choices seem like the only ones open to her. For example, she couldn’t find any other school for the kids except that Protestant private school? She couldn’t drop the kids off at Jenny’s house for a week (Jenny wanted them anyway) to take that business trip for her fashion job? She couldn’t find a mid-level position anywhere, but instead went from powerful executive to receptionist in the blink of an eye? Those scenarios just didn’t ring true at all and distracted me from what was going on in the movie.
Overall, I’m giving Raising Helen only 4.5 stars out of 10. It’s simply too boring and predictable to warrant a higher rating, and I think you’ll be wasting your time to watch it.