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Next Best Thing (The)

Country: USA, Language: English, 108 mins

  • Director: John Schlesinger
  • Writer: Tom Ropelewski
  • Producer: Leslie Dixon; Gary Lucchesi

CGiii Comment

Schlesinger's final film and, unfortunately, it is a forgettable fluffy foray.

Basically, an inferior re-working of The Object of My Affection.

Madonna has a rather strange accent, the story is, by the end, thoroughly objectionable and it feels like a TV movie.

It should have been huge at the box office...but, it bombed - quite rightly so.

Watchable as long as you keep your expectations low.

A sad end to a blistering career.


Trailer...

The(ir) Blurb...

A comedy-drama about best friends - one a straight woman, Abbie, the other a gay man, Robert - who decide to have a child together. Five years later, Abbie falls in love with a straight man and wants to move away with her and Robert's little boy Sam, and a nasty custody battle ensues.

Cast & Characters

Madonna as Abbie Reynolds;
Rupert Everett as Robert Whittaker;
Benjamin Bratt as Ben Cooper;
Illeana Douglas as Elizabeth Ryder;
Michael Vartan as Kevin Lasater;
Josef Sommer as Richard Whittaker;
Malcolm Stumpf as Sam;
Lynn Redgrave as Helen Whittaker;
Neil Patrick Harris as David;
Mark Valley as Cardiologist;
Suzanne Krull as Annabel;
Stacy Edwards as Finn;
John Carroll Lynch as Abbie's Lawyer;
Fran Bennett as Judge Tracey Bennett;
Ricki Lopez as Angel