Jenna Elfman (née Jennifer Mary Butala), best known as Dharma in Dharma and Greg, just joined the cast of the independent feature The Six Wives of Henry Lefay.
The movie began filming this week, so her addition to the cast was none too soon. Henry Lefay stars Tim Allen as the title character, an oft-married man who is reported dead. When his unmarried daughter (Elisha Cuthbert) comes home to bury him, she finds his current wife and five ex-wives battling about his burial, his will and, of course, his love. I’m sure hilarity ensues.
The whole “six wives” angle has a twist. Elfman’s character, a “small-town diva,” was both his second and fourth wife. (This really confused me when I first read about Elfman joining the cast. She was the final wife signed, but there were only four other wives listed, plus his daughter. I puzzled over this for quite some time until I reread the article. Then I felt stupid.) I’m assuming that the title is a play on Henry the VIII and his six wives (cue Jonathan Rhys Meyers shouting, “I’m the Kind of England!”), but I don’t know whether this goes further than the title.
Jenna Elfman aside, there are still four other wives in the picture:
S. Epatha Merkerson
I love her. In the unlikely event that I see this movie, it will be because of her.
Andie MacDowell
Um, there’s either some serious airbrushing, zero-gravity or major porn star implants here. There’s no way she can sleep on her stomach.
I think she and Andie MacDowell have the same surgeon.
Kelli Garner
This is where I get skeeved out. She looks younger than Elisha Cuthbert.
The wives range in age from 25 to 55, so I’m guessing there will be a lot of age-related witty rejoinders. As a general rule, I like ensemble pieces about women and this is certainly not a bad cast, but it’s a little hard to get excited about five women arguing over which one of them Tim Allen loved best. Tim Allen? Really?
All of the film gossip sites seem to offer the same general synopsis printed above. The things we can infer are that Henry Lefay is not really dead, and that it’s somehow important that his daughter is unmarried. And you can read some vapid comments that Elisha Cuthbert made about the movie back in June. But, who knows, perhaps the relationships among the women will be interesting.
And, of course, with such an array of wives (past and present), I’m imagining what it would be like to be married to any of them. I really like S. Epatha Merkerson, but not really in that way. The rest don’t really do much for me. How about you? Would you marry any of them?
