The Next Best Thing

The Next Best Thing is a cute, but superficial comedy drama about an unusual family.

Abbie is not very lucky in love, and neither is her good friend Robert, who is gay. One night they get plastered and go to bed with each other. Afterwards there is the hangover and the embarrassment - and an unwanted pregnancy.

Abbie and Robert decide to have the child and live like a normal family, well almost. Everything works out fine, but the little family is doomed to fall apart as both Abbie and Robert are still on the lookout for the one and only.

The great jumps in time are not exactly seamlessly done; the screenwriter Thomas Ropelewski chooses the easy way out in the ending, and Abbie's man of her dream as played by Benjamin Bratt is too good to be true, simply unconvincing. The film has quite a few shortcomings, but it has some admirable qualities as well. For instance it was about time that a film dealt with other family forms than the traditional nuclear family.