Raising Helen

A footloose young woman (Kate Hudson) suddenly finds herself responsible for her late sister’s children—when she never bothered to grow up herself. The premise (written by Patrick J. Clifton, Beth Rigazio, Jack Amiel and Michael Begler) is one that never happens in life—only in movies like this, whose writers (and director Garry Marshall) have an appealing star they don’t know what to do with. (Come to think of it, that’s a common thread in Marshall’s career—think of Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, Dear God and even the Odd Couple TV series.) Hudson is charming, and Joan Cusack (as her surviving sister) is as good as usual, but the film is leaden and creaky, unworthy of either of them. John Corbett, as a neighborhood minister, is as blandly handsome as he was in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.