Love and Other Disasters (2006): review: 6.5/10

Led by a girl who works at Vogue, a crew of homosexuals and girly girls cavort in London in search of romantic bliss: Murphy wanders about prettily, sharing a flat with one of the homosexuals and dispensing advice. She has an ex-boyfriend: he is described unflatteringly: they occasionally meet for sexual congress. She likes an Argentinian photographic assistant who provides an anchor of seriousness among the trivia, flirtation and occasional humour provided by, among others, alcoholic woman- the British consider drunkeness to be essentially a comic -as opposted to pathetic- condition.

This is a slick bourgois romantic comedy which still has life despite, post crisis, feeling like a period piece: how much you like this film will depend on how much you like the environment and culture it depicts.

Raising Helen (2004): review: 6/10

There are three sisters: Helen lives in New York and works for a fashion model agency: she is single and works a fair amount, at other times drinking. Her elder sister, who is considerably less attractive, has two children, a settled suburban lifestyle and a superiority complex. The third sister and husband die in a car accident: it is written in the Will that Helen is to take charge of the children, a boy and an adolescent girl, much to the chagrin of the elder sister and to the suprise of Helen herself.

Helen moves from Manhattan to Queens where she is befriended by a kind neighbour. She sends the children to a Lutheran school, where she meets a charming pastor. She has problems keeping up with her work commitments, and fulfilling some of the roles of parent, specifically when the adolescent girl becomes involved with an unpleasant young man who wears a baseball cap the wrong way round.

There's nothing really wrong with this film: it's ok, overlong, well intentioned, but unsurprising.

Little Black Book: review: 2/10

A girl works for a television company which produces Oprah-style confessional discussions, in which people complain about their partners, whom they meet in front of live televised studio audeinces. She starts to do research on her own partner, going through his posessions and interviewing and befriending his ex-girlfriends.

This film goes on and on: it is quite unclear what the message is: it lacks the clarity and simplicity of "Pandora's Box". The acting is very two-dimensional. It thinks it is funny when it isn't and it has an awful, lifeless slickness about it too.

Dont Say a Word (2001): review: 2.5/10

A psychiatrist lives in a large apartment in New York with a small girl and a woman with a broken leg which is in plaster. The other leg is bare. She lies on the beg and he gives her bare leg a sponge bath, presumably as a prelude to some sort of sexual activity. The bare leg is nice to see and, happily, features a lot in the film.

The small girl likes to play hiding games. But one day the shrink cannot find the girl: this is because she has been kidnapped as part of a complex scheme run by an unpleasant but cleverly calculating cold-hearted Englishman (probably from Yorkshire): his goal is to obtain detail of how to find a big ruby from a patient at the psychiatrist's hospital and to get the pyschiatrist to extract the information from the patient.The Englishman uses bad language and is threatening and even violent. He seems to be able to watch people all the time His coherts are unloveable too. Luckily one of the characters is a female police officer with beautiful long hair. She is very efficient. Eventually she will catch up with the baddies in a graveyard at night!

It starts off promisingly, but the plot is too convoluted and the characters not well fleshed out enough to garmer sympathy: it goes on forever

None of the acting is quite convincing- Murphy is totally out of her depth and, like everyone else, is just trying too hard. Douglas goes about being gruffly self assured and husky- as ever. The sound score is unsubtle.  The film requires more humour.

Uptown Girls (2003): review: 8/10

No longer wealthy, a charming but unworldly girl loses her apartment. She moves in with a friend and has to change her attitudes to life and money.

She is also forced to take a job as the nanny to a spoiled, unhappy girl with strict, joyless attitudes; and whose father is in a coma, and whose mother is distant.

All the while she pursues an English guitar singer for romantic ends.

As a nanny, Murphy succeeds in bringing out gentler and warmer attitudes from her charge.

This is a sweet-tempered and intelligent film sustained by Murphy's charm and the well-directed central relationship between nanny and child.