The Next Best Thing:comedy-drama. Starring Rupert Everett, Madonna, Benjamin Bratt, Malcolm Stumpf, Josef Summer and Lynn Redgrave. Written by Tom Ropelewski.  Directed by John Schlesinger.   Rated “R”. Now playing at Bay Area Theaters.

God knows Gay Americans have made some progress remolding their image in the movies, but don’t go using The Next Best Thing as a yardstick, because it comes up about a foot and a half short.  Maybe this already dated film it will knock Keokuk, Iowa on its ear, but to urban jaded viewers in San Francisco it tastes like expired two percent milk.

Not that The Next Best Thing is that bad, though it skates pretty close.  It’s sometimes pleasant and funny, but that’s all.  Rupert Everett plays Robert, a groundskeeper (shades of Brendan Fraser in Gods and Monsters) for “two of the meanest Queens in Christendom”. His very best friend Abbie (Madonna), a successful yoga instructor and loser in love, has just been dumped again by another boyfriend.  While commiserating together one Fourth of July, they both get blazingly drunk and fall into bed together (to fireworks no less: whoever dredged up that chestnut should be force fed lit cherry bombs). Before you can say “I missed my period and why am I eating so much?” Abbie realizes she’s become pregnant by Robert (I think we’ve recently seen the straight woman and her gay best friend thing, too.  I can’t recall where, but this is one of those times when showing off my knowledge isn’t worth the trouble).

The movie is set in L.A’s upper strata, an amazingly sheltered world, because it takes only a Hollywood minute for Abbie and Robert to decide to unite as Mom and Dad (how much more interesting it would be, say, if they lived in the same environment as Boys Don’t Cry.). One hundred percent dedicated, this alternative couple raises little Sam (Malcolm Stumpf) together, while otherwise pursuing their own separate lives, with the support of almost everyone, but even the opposition is dismissed with a swoop of the feather duster. 

A couple more Hollywood minutes tick by, Sam turns six and everyone’s happy. Then in walks Ben (Benjamin Bratt) a New York businessman apparently so dense he mistakes Abbie’s yoga school for a 24-Hour Fitness Center. Instantly Ben and Abbie start dating.He has an oily air about him, but wouldn’t you know it, he’s a nice understanding guy too. He and Abbie decide to tie the knot and consider taking Sam back to New York with them (and Robert thinks, out of his life.)

Up to now Robert has been the perfect sweetheart.  Suddenly, with no warning, he flips over to Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest, becoming unreasonably unreasonable. Determined to keep Sam at all costs, he files a custody suit against Abbie, ruining their friendship and possibly losing Sam forever.

Complicating matters further is the mystery of Sam’s actual parentage. This leads to a potentially good double twist in the climactic court scene.  It seems for a time, that we may get actually something of a realistic ending in a tale of a man who tries too hard to hang onto the things he loves and winds up back at square one.  

But never forget this is Hollywood, not the real world, not even the rest of America.  Things end terribly in The Next Best Thing, which is to say they end happily, the worst thing of all, the habit Hollywood, the town of lame dreams and stupid miracles, will never kick so long as it remains addicted to audience preview cards and its junkie’s craving to compete with thirty-year old television shows.

The film is packed with clichés that had even this breeder male wincing.  Diva jokes, two terrible funeral scenes (one of them with Madonna and the gay mourners embarrassing themselves with an a Capella version of American Pie: that’s how dated and irrelevant the film is. It made me want to join the squares on the other side of the grave); a fussy gay couple obsessed with neatness and antiques. Rupert’s Mom (Lynn Redgrave, the acting pro with a thankless task) understands all. Rupert’s Dad (Josef Sommer) doesn’t, but not for long.  The clichés pile up like a multi pink car accident.  

A few funny lines and the presence of Rupert Everett save Tom Ropelewski’s cute and generally awful script.  As Robert, Everett gives his character a swaggering impulsive grace, even managing to handle the flip flop in character towards the end with the ease of a dancer. He’s marvelous throughout. 

It’s fashionable to knock Madonna for every breath she takes these days (except of course for the diehards), but she does all right as Abbie when not singing American Pie.  She brings a sense of rough dignity to her flatly written role (she might do better with blue-collar parts. She could yet grow into a good character actor).  To me at least, she’s more attractive then she’s ever been, even when she was prancing around between the covers of Sex (my copy sits untouched since I first bought it seven years ago).

Benjamin Bratt as boyfriend Ben is more problematic.  He’s a slick Satanic looking guy whom you keep expecting to start throwing Sam around the room by his feet, but his character remains on the same bland unbelievable level as the script.

Perhaps the saddest thing of all about The Next Best Thing is the credit that reads “Directed by John Schlesinger”.  That the director of 1960s classics like Billy Liar, Far from the Madding Crowd and Midnight Cowboy, is reduced to forcing a slick look on wan material is only further evidence that it’s time for directors like him to escape Hollywood like a speeding bullet. With the independent film movement continuing to burgeon, there has to be more worthy material for a director like him to tackle.  Hopefully he’s taking the money from this job for something he really wants to do.

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