PG, 119 mins
Kate Hudson stars as Helen, a Manhattan party queen with a job at a modelling agency and a life full of fun, fun, fun. Unfortunately, fate calls last orders on her club-hopping existence when her sister is killed in an accident and Helen finds herself responsible for three children.
“Self-knowledge through bereavement and the healing power of childcare” is a theme that Hollywood seems particularly keen on right now, the last example being the execrable Ben Affleck vehicle Jersey Girl.
Raising Helen is little better, although it does boast an amusing scene where a heavily pregnant Joan Cusack scares the sex drive out of a teenage boy with the threat of inevitable unplanned pregnancy.
On the down side, we have John Corbett as the handsome young pastor who informs Helen that “I’m a sexy man of God and I know it”, which is surely one of the worst lines ever written.