The Film Experience

A series by Christopher James investigating the 'Gay Best Friend' trope

Both Madonna and Rupert Everett made some key mistakes in "The Next Best Thing."Gay men love their one named divas, and with good reason. Madonna is in the upper echelon of gay icons. Her outspoken nature, incredible discography, ever-evolving persona and culture-defining fashion have given her a remarkably enduring legacy that should be lauded. Still, every gay icon has a few flops in their closet.

The Next Best Thing has been virtually wiped from the world. Unavailable from all streaming platforms (including transactional video on demand services), in order to gaze upon this Sodom and Gomorrah of filmmaking I had to order a used DVD from an Amazon seller. The Next Best Thing both did and did not disappoint. It's an epically misguided trainwreck not just in scope (the film takes place over a 7 year period) but in the colossal ways it fails its characters, stars, director and the media of filmmaking itself. Adding insult to injury, it also is an early digital film, making it look like part home movie and part snuff film. Move over The Room, The Next Best Thing is a midnight trash-terpiece...

Real life friends Madonna and Rupert Everett headlined what would be legendary director John Schlesinger’s final film. When we open, Madonna’s Abbie is in the midst of a breakup with Kevin (Michael Vartan), a Guy Richie type from Central Casting. What is one to do after they get out of a terrible breakup? Of course Abbie calls her gay best friend, Robert (Everett), who is quick to come over and console her. Not only that, he does the dirty work of getting her keys back from her homophobic ex (he calls Robert a “fag” early on) by pretending to be his fem boyfriend and showing up at work. The filmmakers may have thought this was an empowering moment of Robert getting one over on a bad, homophobic person. However, it’s just merely one example of the movie’s femphobia in gay men. It can deal with handsome, cis, white men who only appear to be gay when they talk about Judy Garland. Oh, but if a gay man insists on being feminized, it borders on embarrassing or perversion.

Before he was out, Neil Patrick Harris played David, a friend of Madonna's Abbie and Rupert Everett's Robert.

Before the plot gets moving, our stars must first attend the funeral of one of their close friends who has died from AIDS. Neil Patrick Harris plays the dead man’s surviving lover, cut out of the proceedings by the homophobic family of the dead. In any other movie, this could make for an enriching A or B plot; At the time the movie was made, the AIDS epidemic was still claiming the lives of so many gay men. This could’ve been a further window into Robert's life and community. The Next Best Thing has other plans, though. Harris is only briefly seen in two more scenes throughout the movie and his dead lover is never mentioned again. This scene exists for one reason and one reason only. It sets up that Abbie and Robert’s friend loved the song “American Pie” by Don McLean. Thus, this is reason enough for Madonna to release her own (much shorter) pop rendition of “American Pie,” which is likely the only remaining footprint on the culture that this film has.

Now that we’ve made it past the requisite AIDS moment, the movie gets right back to the plot. Robert and Abbie get eight martinis drunk at one of Robert’s client’s houses. What transpires is a maddening montage that seems to have been made in the most 1.0 version of iMovie. All this leads to the two of them having sex. They don’t get much time to talk about it in the morning when they wake up hungover and have to clean up quickly before the owner’s come out. Robert gets to talk it over with Neil Patrick Harris while they picnic at his lover’s grave. “Next thing you know he’ll be combing his hair like Donald Trump… and voting Republican” another friend cracks. The rest of the scene ages as badly as that line. Robert’s friends worry he’s crossing back over to straight and Robert holds contempt for his friend’s concern.

Rupert Everett's Robert jumps at the chance to be Abbie's baby-daddy without a moments hesitation.

Abbie: I have something to tell you.

Robert: Is it bigger than a breadbox?

Abbie: Heh, not yet.

Yes, that’s how Abbie tells Robert that she’s pregnant with his kid. After very little conversation, the two of them come up with an arrangement. They will raise the kid together and live together, as woman and gay best friend. Cue multiple jokes about having “all the best of marriage and none of the sex.” Each of Madonna’s bizarrely dressed Kabbalah friends gets to do a tight five of marriage and gay jokes.

From here on out, the movie moves at breakneck speed. Abbie has the kid and names him Sam. He’s a baby for no less than a scene and a half and already we jump six years into the future. Abbie and Robert are still living together and happily raising Sam together. Robert has been seeing a hot cardiologist (Mark Valley) who looks similarly white, cis and masculine… but BLONDE! Other than quick asides during Sam’s party, we only get one real scene with the two men. The cardiologist (his official credit) wants to go out more and isn’t necessarily ready to co-parent with Robert, and by extension Abbie. Once again, we hover over something potentially interesting to explore. Gay men have long been depicted as partiers who are never asked by society to settle down and have kids. What does it look like when one chooses that more “conventional” path and how does that chaffe with his gay friends who haven’t made that choice? Unfortunately, this is the only time the movie will ask these questions.

On top of a Worst Actress win, Madonna was nominated for a worst chemistry Razzie that was shared with Rupert Everett and Benjamin Bratt.

Just as Robert’s love life dwindles, Abbie happens upon a handsome man at her yoga studio, Ben (Benjamin Bratt). She embarrasses him with complicated yoga moves before accepting his first date. The degree to which they do not have chemistry is staggering. After a flaccid first date, the movie speeds ahead yet again. Sam sees Ben around the house and tells Robert. He confronts Abbie and Ben, while they are in bed together, and Abbie tells Robert that she is getting married to Ben and moving to New York. Before you even have a chance to think “what about Robert,” Abbie and Ben have kidnapped Sam and fled their home. Robert has no other choice. He hires a lawyer (Ileana Douglas, praise be) and sues Abbie for custody.

The legal drama takes up the rest of the movie and nearly a majority of the movie’s run time. In a movie filled with baffling and underdeveloped character beats, this section of the movie is by far the worst. Seemingly overnight, Abbie goes from having a wonderful relationship with her best friend and co-parent to stealing the kid from him and moving out without any notice. The big twist of the movie is that Robert was never Sam’s biological father, and it was actually Kevin’s kid all along. What this reveal unearths is Abbie’s complete inability to see Robert as a real person. He’s a shoulder to cry on, a man to have drunken sex with, a Father to her son, but never a person with a life outside of her. She lied about the parentage of her child so that he would stick around and live this “Will & Grace and a Baby” fantasy with her. Then the minute she finds a straight man with a pulse, she casts him aside like garbage. The movie never wants to see Madonna as a villain even if this section of the movie is always through Robert’s perspective. This is a critical miscalculation.

We have to contend with the Madonna of it all. To love Madonna is to also acknowledge her limitations. She’s an unparalleled musician and cultural mainstay. What she is not is an actress. Yes, Evita gays can argue their heart out until their faces go blue. To be fair, she’s quite good in Evita. Also, a broken clock is right twice a day. On stage, Madonna has a commanding presence and star persona. On screen, Madonna can’t escape the shadow of her own stardom. Dick Tracy is a great example where she uses this to her advantage. In The Next Best Thing (and most of her other movies), she struggles to inhabit the characters she’s tasked with playing unless they somehow connect to her life or interests. The element of Abbie that Madonna seems most interested is… her yoga studio. This fits squarely in her “Ray of Light” and Kabbalah era (thanks Sandra Bernhardt) and you can tell. She puts more energy into her yoga poses than interrogating why Abbie is being so cruel to her gay best friend. She loses the emotional thread of the movie far before it descends into legal nonsense.

Once great friends, Madonna and Rupert Everett's friendship hit some bumps in the road during and following the film's failure.

“I was in control of the whole thing at first,” he said. “But everything takes so long, and I’ve got really bad A.D.D. in that sense. Then there was John Schlesinger, the director, and Madonna, all these big egos, and I don’t have a very good combative side. I give in to everything and get bored.” He shook his head. “So many burned bridges. I should never be in control or power. Every single decision I made was the wrong one.” -Rupert Everett in The New York Times Magazine in 2009

The film world (more specifically the Razzies) loves to delight in schadenfreude for Madonna’s movie failures. While this often reeks of misogyny, her Worst Actress win from the Razzies for this was well earned. However, the heart of the problem lies in a misbegotten script that seems to be the Frankenstein of multiple movies, writers and ideas. The book Final Cuts: The Last Films of 50 Great Directors notes that even Ryan Murphy rewrote a draft of the film before Everett had a crack at it. Even with over seven years of development, every element feels under-baked. Perhaps each year brought a new genre or plot element, never refining the central relationship between Abbie and Robert.

However, it's very telling that the person who came out most burnt from the failure of The Next Best Thing was Everett. Not only did he reportedly lose a friendship with Madonna (that they may have repaired), but he lost his career as well. It wasn’t until The Happy Prince in 2018 that Everett got another leading role in a major theatrical film. After My Best Friend’s Wedding in 1997, Everett was poised to be our first openly gay major film actor. There was a sense that The Next Best Thing could put him in the leading man pantheon. With terrible reviews and poor box office, heads had to roll. Being the out gay man, rather than the world's famous pop star, Everett’s head was the first on the chopping block.

Especially at the turn of the century, different minority groups and stories only got one shot. Not only that, but success could be written off easily. Movies like Philadelphia and The Birdcage did strong enough box office to demonstrate that audiences would turn out for LGBTQ+ stories. Unfortunately, The Next Best Thing was the failure that people could cite that gay men couldn’t lead movies. The goal of the film may have been to subvert the gay best friend trope and turn him into a leading man. Yet, between the poor execution and many revisions this noble goal got lost in the shuffle. What’s left is a scattered, ugly, homophobic mess that has to be seen to be believed. It takes talent to make something this otherworldly bad.

Previously in Gay Best Friend

Who is your favorite (or least favorite) example of a “gay best friend” in movies? Let us know in the comments below.