If you had to cast the role of an obstetrician in an upscale chick flick, Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie probably wouldn’t spring instantly to mind. That it did to Helen Hunt makes you wonder if the erstwhile Oscar winner – looking alarmingly gaunt for her 45 years – might have overstretched herself co-writing, directing, producing and starring in this trite, mawkish adap of Elinor Lipman’s 1990 novel. As the recently separated schoolteacher desperate to get knocked up before her biological clock stops ticking (where’s Seth Rogen when you need him?), Hunt is working well within her wheelhouse. Bette Midler, though, struts her stuff as a talkshow-host mother like she’s playing Vegas, while Colin Firth looks downright miserable as the pissy parent who becomes her latest squeeze. All in all, not quite as good as it gets.
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