Name a female director. Now name one besides Sofia Coppola. Women have successfully conquered nearly every part of the filmmaking process, but the director's chair remains largely the domain of manly men. Women like Penny Marshall and Betty Thomas have had some success at it, but where's the female Martin Scorsese? Maybe it's Helen Hunt.
The former "Mad About You" star is soon to make her directorial debut with the drama Then She Found Me. She's been working eight years to get the movie made. It's adapted from a novel by Elinor Lipman, the story of a high school Latin teacher getting to know her obnoxious TV talkshow hostess birth mother after the death of her adoptive parents.
Hardly sounds worth eight years of struggle, but she's read it. I haven't.
The latest on the movie is that Helen has found her cast. Variety says Colin Firth, Matthew Broderick, and Bette Midler are signing up to headline it. Bette will naturally play the obnoxious birth mother, and Helen Hunt will play the Latin loving daughter April Epner. Broderick is Epner's husband and Firth plays a random dude she meets through a student. Yes, I said dude. It fits.
