Prior to seeing Then She Found Me, I heedlessly referred to it as “that Helen Hunt movie” and cynically prejudged it as yet another celebrity pet project that was sure to be a misguided and perhaps freewheeling bore. Well, I stand corrected: I absolutely love the film, which was written and directed by the Oscar-winning actress (yeah, I forgot she won one, too), adapted quite loosely from Elinor Lipman’s novel of the same name.

And hopefully you won’t hold it against me, especially if you haven’t seen it. The strange thing about seeing a film like Then She Found Me at SXSW is that it doesn’t seem hip enough for the festival, despite the ironic fact that many movies screening this year were about nerds, geeks and other sorts of outcast. Nobody wants to hear you say, “hey, that Helen Hunt movie is actually really good.” Between that and telling people that I love Bette Midler again (not randomly; she’s in the film), I felt like a stranger in a strange world the rest of my time in Austin.

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