Critic Reviews

A smart, subtle and seriously funny dramedy bound to find favor with sophisticated auds.

With the screenwriters Alice Arlen and Victor Levin, Hunt adapted the story from a 1990 novel by Elinor Lipman, and has turned the material into a fine, tense, unpredictable comedy of mixed-up emotions and sudden illuminations.

Hunt's movie-directing debut frequently crackles with nice gags.

This is Hunt's show, and she delivers a strong performance that captures all the seriousness and absurdity of the avalanche of circumstances that comes crashing down on April's head. To say she's only half the director she is an actress is actually paying her quite a complement.

While there are plenty of laughs, Hunt doesn't play this for farce. Even Midler gives perhaps the most restrained, and arguably the most winning, performance of her screen career.

A strength of Then She Found Me, from Elinor Lipman's novel, is its straightforward, uncomplicated storytelling that keeps the threads untangled and blends the everyday and the absurd with natural ease.

The new movie shrieks of motherhood - raising hot-button issues like biological clocks running down, the rights of birth mothers and whether to adopt or give artificial insemination a shot.

With subtle laughs but solid emotional thrust, it will play very well with older audiences.

Then She Found Me, a serious comedy, is more impressive for what it refuses to do than for its modest accomplishment.

There's something about Hunt's put-upon persona that grates, and it would be nice to see her for once in a role that doesn't call on her to be so angry, short-tempered and disappointed all the time...Still, all in all, Then She Found Me is a warm, entertaining and well-made little movie and an auspicious debut for Hunt the director.