Mid-life crises are typically reserved for men in the movies. Not so for 39 year old April (Hunt), well aware of her biological clock tick tocking away. She doesn’t want to adopt even though she was adopted herself and conceiving is put on hold when her immature husband Ben (Broderick) dumps her exactly a year after they married. The next day her mother dies.

Things couldn’t get much worse, could they? Of course they can because this is a dramedy full of sly, wry comedy combining drama of Herculean proportions. As Hunt’s character manoeuvres her way through one ordeal onto the next her film could easily move into hysterical territory.

It never does. Even when Bette Midler as April’s real mother Bernice, a minor TV celebrity, shows up demanding rights over her daughter’s affections and claiming Steve McQueen to be her father.

Time for a pause. Hunt won an Oscar for her performance in As Good As It Gets opposite Jack Nicholson more than 10 years ago, but has never found material as good as that since. So perhaps that’s why she’s put pen to paper and is standing behind the camera as well as in front of it.

Adapted by Hunt from Elinor Lipman’s novel the actress turned director boldly favours extreme close-ups in unforgiving fashion. It’s no wonder she often looks gaunt and pale when every crossroad decision leads to a curveball side street. Dramedy translates to rom-com for adults with all the complications nearly 40-somethings and their baggage bring to a script.

It’s not all doom and gloom for April though. There’s a new flame on the horizon, neurotic single dad Frank – Colin Firth playing Mr Perfect as usual. But April’s man/child husband continues to prove inexplicably irresistible.

Because Hunt is such a talented actress Then She Found Me is an actors movie. An all too rare performance from The Divine Miss M, veering from gushing to over ebullience and a predilection for avoiding the truth, is a joy and there’s a bizarre cameo from Salman Rushdie as a gynaecologist.

But Hunt’s fear of turning April into some kind of melodramatic victim brings a coldness to her heroine and because of that Then She Found Me doesn’t touch our emotions as much as it should do.

Then She Found Me opens in UK cinemas on the 19 September 2008.

Interested in queer cinema? Then take a look at queer films like Balls, Another Gay Movie, Night Watch, Adam and Steve, Hellbent, Slutty Summer, Locked Up and Straight Jacket. Buy the online and save some money.