The Next Best Thing

REVIEW
Gay cinema may not have come as far as it could have by the year 2000, but the comedy-drama The Next Best Thing does prove that a story revolving around gay characters can be as pointless as stories about straight ones. After a drunken roll in the sack with gay best friend Robert (Everett), single mom Abbie (Madonna) decides she's keeping her baby. The two raise the child together -- which they do with great success and little fuss. That is until Abbie meets Mr. Right (Bratt), and the story takes a weird twist into Kramer vs. Kramer territory. Everett is especially good as Robert, zinging a one-liner and a plea for fatherhood with equal aplomb. The gracious Madonna even allows Everett the better lines and bigger role. But Everett and a good cast aren't enough to compensate for a scatter-shot screenplay -- admittedly funny in the first half -- that ends up not taking one road at the fork, but all the roads.