Courtesy The Sunday Leader - By Sumaya Samarasinghe
Kate Reddy (Sarah Jessica Parker), keeps running and running and juggling her crazy life the best she can.
When the movie begins, we see Kate buying a ready made pie for her daughter’s school bake sale. She has just come back from an exhausting business trip and is found in the kitchen by her semi employed architect husband Richard, played by the always charming Greg Kinnear (when is that man going to ever get the role of a career?).
Kate is a hedge fund manager for an investment company in Boston. Despite not always having the time to brush her hair or clean the chocolate Nutella from her jacket, Kate is brilliant at her work and her career is flourishing at the expense of the time she spends with husband and her two small children.
Her mother in law never fails to remind her that a stronger mother’s presence would have probably made her two year old son talk sooner; but Kate seems strangely immune to those comments.
Her life is one big juggle. She tries to do all the “motherly” things by taking her kids to school and preparing their lunches while she cannot let go of the opportunity to work with Jack Abelhammer, played by a super suave but yet likable Pierce Brosnan who is perfect in his role as a hot shot business man. Kate finds herself obliged to travel regularly to New York to work with Jack and some flirtation between the two begins.
The supporting cast somehow steals the show. Kate’s friend and single mother Allison played by the gorgeous Christina Hendricks is a lawyer who addresses the camera directly when speaking about Kate; unfortunately the statements she makes are far from filled with any substance and sound as interesting as her shopping list. The best thing in the film is probably Olivia Munn as Momo, Kate’s cold hearted and workaholic brilliant second in command who loses all her cool when she discovers that she is pregnant.
So what is “I don’t know how she does it” about? A woman who seems to have it all; the career, the loving husband, the cute kids and a faithful support system of friends, a chaotic nanny and a nasty boss
(Kelsey Grammer) who knows her potential and gives her all the career opportunities she needs.
It is unclear if the aim of the film was to make Kate’s life appealing because after all, she is a woman who has it all: faithful husband, two beautiful kids,a gorgeous townhouse in Boston and a flourishing career. But the truth of the matter is that it looks like hell.
Who is the mother who wants to sing lullabies over the phone to their toddler instead of cuddling them to sleep, who wants to leave their family during Thanksgiving or be so immersed in their own careers that they forget about their husband’s important business dinner date which could positively change things for him on a professional basis?
Kate seems frazzled all the time and the film is watchable only because it is Sarah Jessica Parker. She is likable indeed but this is just a married, mother and corporate career version of her usual Carrie Bradshaw performance and it is getting a bit dated. She is a funny actress and the lice on the head scene is quite hilarious. But how long is she going to play these semi ditsy parts?
When she came in a supporting role in The Family Stone and was excellent in it, there seemed to be some hope that her career was reaching “adulthood” at last, but in the past three years, Parker’s choice in movies has been quite catastrophic. Who wants to remember her 2009 “Remember the Morgans?” No one for sure!
Apart from that, “ I don’t know how she does it” might be a decent movie to watch on a rainy day with your girlfriends and a massive amount of popcorn. I don’t think many men will connect nor have the patience to watch Sarah Jessica Parker run around like the energiser bunny. It is a watchable and yet very forgettable film
