Product: The Next Best Thing (2000)
Rating: 1.0
Total bust in all directions
I had some respect for Madonna before I saw this. But -- no more! If they had set out to make a movie with three characters -- a quintessential "today's woman, a gay man, and a stereotypical stock-character arrogant, self-centered jerk of a "straight" man, then trying to make them equal by making everybody look bad, they could have hardly done a better job than with this film! No heroes or heroines here -- everybody just double-crosses everybody. If they had tried to make it into a zany comdedy after the manner of A FISH CALLED WANDA or the more slapstick parts of MR. DEEDS, they might have had some success. But as is, THE NEXT BEST THING tries to be a serious movie without any real redeeming value. The line that stands out most in my memory is when Madonna's character expresses disappointment in her gay friend by saying, "As a gay man, I expected better from you." So much for not putting people "on pedestals" and so much for any thought that equality really means equality! What COULD this be the next best thing to? Yeast infections maybe?