The Next Best Thing

The Next Best Thing (2000) — watch online on iFILM. Directed by John Schlesinger, the film stars Madonna as Abbie and Rupert Everett as Robert, lifelong best friends on opposite sides of the same loneliness. One drunken night and a patchy morning later, Abbie is pregnant. They decide to raise the child together — no romance, just friendship and shared custody.

For five years it works. Then Abbie meets Ben, played by Benjamin Bratt, and wants to start over somewhere else with their son Sam. Robert won't let Sam go. What follows is a custody dispute that strips away every comfortable assumption both characters held about their arrangement. Neil Patrick Harris appears in a supporting role.

Schlesinger, whose career stretched from Midnight Cowboy to this final theatrical feature, brought the same interest in people who don't fit conventional categories. The screenplay by Tom Ropelewski arrived before this kind of story had a familiar template, which gives it a slightly rawer edge than later films on the same subject. Stream The Next Best Thing online on iFILM.