The Next Best Thing

Of all words in the English language, "boring" is possibly the one Madonna finds most offensive. <br><br>Yet "boring" describes not only her performance in "The Next Best Thing," but also the movie itself.

Friday, March 3rd 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Of all words in the English language, "boring" is possibly the one Madonna finds most offensive.

Yet "boring" describes not only her performance in "The Next Best Thing," but also the movie itself. Sadly directed by the gifted John Schlesinger ("Midnight Cowboy;" "Darling;" "Sunday, Bloody, Sunday"), it's a bogus slice of calculated showmanship.

Madonna and off-screen bud Rupert Everett play Abbie and Robert, two best friends trying to find their niche in Los Angeles. He's gay, so he and Abbie share the problem of usually falling for the wrong men. On one particularly lost weekend, they spend the night together, and Abbie gets pregnant.

The rest of the terminally slow-moving comedy-drama details their attempt to lovingly raise their son, Sam, in a one-happy-family atmosphere. But Abbie finally finds Mr. Right, a dreadfully good-natured businessman played by Benjamin Bratt, and plans to uproot Sam from L.A. to New York. Hoping to protect his paternal rights, but knowing he has scant chance of victory, Robert takes the case to court.

Mr. Everett has created sparks with such diverse actresses as Julia Roberts, Julianne Moore and Miranda Richardson. But he and Madonna don't even have the on-screen chemistry of two people who happen to like each other a lot. They simply have the attitude of two people who take each other for granted.

Madonna's latest venture into screen acting isn't helped by the fact that her character, Abbie, sometimes seems selfish and even clueless. Are we really supposed to chuckle when she tries to exit a car in the middle of an automatic car wash?

Abbie is an ordinary woman, Madonna-style. As if the diva was looking over first-time screenwriter Thomas Ropelewski's shoulder, various orations extol Abbie's face and body as well as her love-making ability. For the record, she's also praised as a great cook, not that anyone asked.

But Madonna gives a painfully ordinary performance as this fantasy ordinary woman. Her mystique and her style are perfect for larger-than-life, Evita-ish roles. But the movie captures and magnifies every facial twitch, requiring a different mode from the performance stage or even music videos. And minimalism is something Madonna probably doesn't understand.

"The Next Best Thing" has made no secret of its story line, so the film's long-winded and self-aware pleas for tolerance and compassion seem like preaching to the converted. But it will win no new friends.