Based on the best-selling novel by Allison Pearson, I Don't Know How She Does It hopes to explore the difficulties in showing working professional businesswomen who still manage to juggle the ever-uneasy balance between the home and the office. Unfortunately, once the smoke clears and the bodies are counted, you'll find yourself wishing the filmmakers hadn't been so blunt about making such a valid, yet overly clichéd, repetitive point.
What is I Don't Know How She Does It All About?
Kate Reddy (Parker) is a driven business woman leading a pretty successful career at a prestigious Boston firm, where she's been trying to make a name for herself while surrounded by equally determined men with similar goals. What none of them know is that she is also the loving mother of two gorgeous children, and married to a struggling architect (Greg Kinnear) who's hoping for a big break in the job market and economy.
When one of Kate's business proposals gets sent to the New York City head office by her boss (Kelsey Grammer) to meet with their superior, Jack Ablehammer (Pierce Brosnan), Kate finds herself with even less time to handle the family requirements of planning birthday parties, play dates, baking for parent groups and spending some real quality time with her devoted hubby.
With the demands of her job increasing while her home life demands just as much, can Kate find a viable balance between the two, without missing out on her children's precious moments?
I Don't Know How She Does It as a Harmless But Pedantic Rom-Com
I honestly began my viewing of this blu-ray with an open mind, despite my reservations with Parker, following her atrocious sequel Sex and the City 2, which had cost me almost three hours of my life. I figured this wouldn't hurt as much, given Brosnan's presence (though I still bear the scars of his Mamma Mia! warbling) as well as Greg Kinnear's as the token hubby.
The film starts out well, with director Douglas McGrath relying on time-tested devices like the testimonial asides (not unlike the winning concept seen on TV's Modern Family or Christopher Guest films) and first person narrative by Parker, explaining the concept of mental lists made by women to keep track of their daily to-do's and attempts at demystifying workplace mysteries.
This works well for a while, especially with the help of Olivia Munn as Parker's impersonal office assistant (Munn steals plenty of scenes) along with brief appearances by Jane Curtin and Seth Meyers (as the office opportunist), all of them help bring levity to what soon becomes a blunt exercise in moral lessons of the worst sort.
About two-thirds to three quarters of the way through this once promising but eventually depressing bore of a film, Parker and the screenwriters start bombarding the audience with a barrage of important lessons about how women can really make it in the workplace, pro-life choices via brief subplots, all the while flirting with the idea of a potential office love affair which doesn't really go anywhere, story-wise.
Please understand, I have no qualm whatsoever with any of these values and topics, and respect women's equal rights at home and in the workplace. That said, I don't really understand how it can
help promote a film of this sort, without getting it bogged down into an antithesis of the rom-com mold.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features
The blu-ray disc only has one feature, an interview with author Allison Pearson. I'd have expected her to shed some light on the situation, but her seven-minute long self-promotional rant makes her sound like she's solely responsible for unearthing this hitherto unknown social issue.
The Final Word on I Don't Know How She Does It
The movie's promoted as "a perfect girl's night out" kind of film. You gentlemen out there reading this review need not fear, it's not all girl power here. I can vouch for a handful of funny one-liners peppered throughout, making this a harmless but inflammatory comedy. Just make sure to duck about 100 minutes in, when the story starts trying to hit you on the head with a massive metaphorical sledgehammer, hoping to knock its message into your skull by way of blunt force trauma.
Have a few bottles of red wine at the ready...you'll need them.
I Don't Know How She Does It: 2 out of 5
Dominic Messier - Dominic Messier is a Toronto-based Film & TV writer, Sci-Fi TV and Film Dramas Topic Editor, and creator of PopCultureLandscape.com
