I Don't Know How She Does It
- Year:2011
- Rating:PG
- Director:Douglas McGrath
- Cast:Pierce Brosnan, Christina Hendricks, Greg Kinnear, Sarah Jessica Parker
- Release Date:November 03, 2011
- Distributor:Roadshow
- Running time:89 minutes
- Film Worth:$8.50
- FILMINK rates movies out of $20 - the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
A good helping of amusingly sharp lines cannot save this uncomfortably odd beast.
Halfway in, I Don't Know How She Does It still feels like the story - if it can be called that - is being set up. SJP is Kate Reddy, a clichéd ‘busy mom' with a loving husband (Greg Kinnear), two kids and a big-shot finance job. The stakes are high at work, Kate's feeling guilty about leaving the kids for endless business travel, there's strain on the marriage - you get the picture...
The vaguely interesting part of the story - Kate's growing friendship with new business associate Jack Abelhammer (Pierce Brosnan) - is tamely handled with the former James Bond, superb in the recent The Ghost Writer, on autopilot. He, and Kinnear (himself excellent as JFK in the flawed but worth-watching Kennedys miniseries) are better than this. Kelsey Grammer is wasted but Olivia Munn gets the loudest laughs as Momo, Kate's somewhat ‘robotic' assistant.
SJP, meanwhile, uses her Sex And The City stock mannerisms (yet again) - Kate is just like Carrie, but with a stylish corporate wardrobe. Parker still gives it her all, though, but this awkwardly-titled film exposes her limited range. Yet she can be funny - a scene involving head lice showcases her precise comic timing.
Directed by Douglas McGrath (Emma, Infamous and co-writer with Woody Allen of Bullets Over Broadway), there are imaginative flourishes, and the film occasionally, and semi-successfully lapses into faux doco-style, with various peripherals talking about the super-mom who's quietly falling apart.
There's a conservative thread running through this film (plus anti-men one-liners played for cheap laughs). Whether you agree with this film's covert conservativism or not, what's makes it feel uncomfortable is that it's disguised in a package designed to appeal to another type of audience entirely.
Give this film to a roomful of old-school feminists and they will rip it to shreds. Give it to a bunch of SATC fans, and they, most likely, will just be disappointed.
