You see, this woman’s sister dies, and she, a free spirit, is stuck with the sister’s three kids, and …

No, I have not watched Summerland, the summer-replacement WB prime-time soaper. This is the plot of Raising Helen. What? You say you can’t tell the difference?

Helen Harris (Kate Hudson) is a go-getter at Dominique’s model shop, and still single (and happily so, it would appear); both her sisters, younger Lindsey (Felicity Huffman) and older super-mom Jenny (Joan Cusack), are married (apparently happily) and have kids. But then, maybe 5-10 minutes into the film, Lindsey and her husband are killed in a car wreck, and to the surprise of everyone concerned care of the kids is willed to essentially clueless Helen rather than to Joan, who is experienced. (Why? It’s all explained at the end, but perhaps not very well.) Helen, in consequence, ends up having to move out of Manhattan, dump her high-paying job, and learn how to take care of children, particularly one niece, Audrey (Hayden Panettiere), who is very close to not being a child any longer, and acts it. Having done all these things, she still is clueless when it comes to taking care of kids, and in a big climactic scene she has to have sister Jenny come and bail her out.

Not a movie that particularly stays with you, though it has its moments. I found those involving Harris’s love interest, Lutheran Pastor Dan Parker (John Corbett), particularly amusing — first, when she is getting the kids into Lutheran school, and trying to convince Pastor Dan that she and they are thoroughgoing Lutherans (he’s heard this one before), later when she fears that she is seducing him into breaking his vows, unaware that Lutheran Pastors are not quite the same as Catholic Priests. ⁽¹⁾

I don’t know that I’d care to recommend this one, but some people thought it was at least decent …