Raising Helen

Parents dead? That's OK. They've willed you to the "Fun Aunt!"

Chanced upon this video at the library. Thought, "Can't kill me" so I got it. Goldie Hawn Part 2 plays a likeable single high-powered executive assistant NYer girl. (A popular choice in RomCom's) Her sister dies leaving behind three children whom she leaves to the heroine rather than her uptight, prissy, pregnant sister Jenny (played a little predictably by Joan Cusack [not her fault, she's a lovely woman and a talented actress]). So she takes the kids and moves into Queens and enrolls them in a private Lutheran School, run by (wait for it) a sexy, single Pastor named Dan (played a little flatly by John Corbett of My Big Fat Greek Wedding fame [totally his own fault. If ever anyone was phoning it in, it was Corbett]). The 'sexy' (he wasn't that sexy, he looked like a dead cow rolled up on the beach) pastor 'falls' immediately for her charming NYer girl ways and rather lamely pursues her and the kids.

Meanwhile, Goldie Hawn, Part 2 is losing her high-powered executive assistant job because her Anna Wintour look-alike boss (played rather briefly by Helen Mirren [not her fault, the script gave her nothing but wardrobing to work with]) wants her life-blood at the office.

Eventually, the kids and their pets and stuffed animals and poor choice of boyfriend get everyone in a hubbub and Jenny (the older, stiff sister) is called in to save the day, which she does. Goldie Hawn II then feels like a failure and rejects the children and her hot and holy minister friend. But learns that she needs people to feel like people or something like that. And everyone is happy in the end.

Best moments: Numa the neighbor takes a bat to the kids' illicit teen party, a bloated John Corbett stands in the center of a skating rink during a touching montage where he's just "played" an interfaith game of hockey, except that you realize the man can't skate at all and so he has to stand there and try to look sexy and bloated while Goldie's Girl skates lovingly around him. HA!