Helen Hunt talks about directing Bette Midler in new film...

The Palm Springs International Film Festival opened with the U.S, premiere of Helen Hunt's directorial debut "Then She Found Me," a lovely comedy-drama that the actress also co-wrote and stars in along with Bette Midler, Colin Firth and Matthew Broderick.

"I finally found a story that I loved so much I couldn't stand to see it go to anybody else," Helen told me shortly before the movie was screened before a packed audience of more than 1,000 people. "My favorite movies are movies that are hard to describe in one sentence and that's kind of what this is. It's the story of people who are very, very, very messed up."

Helen plays a woman who is facing 40 with her biological clock ticking loudly. We get to see her deal with a series of life changes that includes meeting her wacky birth mother (Midler), a talk show host who initially tells her daughter that her birth father is Steve McQueen!

The film provides both Hunt and Midler with their best film roles in years. Midler, a two-time Academy Award nominee ("The Rose" "For the Boys") has been criminally under-utilized on the big screen since "First Wives Club" more than a decade ago.

"The size of the talent is not to be underestimated," Helen said of the Divine Miss M. "Her best moments in the movie are hers. I may have contributed some and brought out some sides of her that I haven't seen on film. But her most stunning moments, she just showed up with. I would love to take all the credit but I can't."

I wondered what it was like for Helen to direct herself in a film: "It's lonely. This movie stopped being a logical experience and started being something I was so hellbent on doing that logic went out the window. Probably grace went out the window and I just did every job I could and one of them was starring in it. But I had Colin Firth and Matthew Broderick and Bette Midler and all these other incredible actors so I did feel that I was with a group of people who would not let me down."