Review: I Don't Know How She Does It
Several times during this movie, miscellaneous characters talking about fund manager and mother Kate Reddy (Sarah Jessica Parker) admit, "I don't know how she does it." Just in case you were unsure what the title of the comedy was or hadn't read the original 2002 novel by Allison Pearson!
In I Don't Know How She Does It, Bostonite Kate is constantly pulled between the business and domestic spheres. It's the age-old story, simplified for film. Kate loves her job, but feels like she is missing her children's formative years. When she's home with her two kids and husband Richard (a handsomely bespectacled Greg Kinnear), she worries that her jerky male officemate Chris Bunce (SNL's Seth Meyers) will claim that all her hard work was really his.
I Don't Know How She Does It half-heartedly attempts to depict how gender roles have changed, but isn't very convincing. Richard doesn't cook (as far as I could tell), but watches the kids when nanny Paula (Gossip Girl's Jessica Szohr) or Kate are unavailable. Jane Curtin, as Kate's mother-in-law, comments on how things were different when she was raising Richard. As if having both a working mother and working father is revolutionary nowadays. Perhaps it's a novelty for the upper class (and some in the upper-middle-class), but for most middle-class and lower-class families, it's a fact of life and has been one for many years. It seems Richard makes enough money (at contracting? his occupation is unclear) that Kate could stay home with the kids. But she so loves her career!
Kate's best pal Allison (Christina Hendricks) is a single working mother, and while her character serves partly as a way for Kate to feel better about herself in comparison, she also delivers some of the most "girl power" lines in the film. In one of her (many) talking head moments, Allison comments on the problem with being a strident woman versus being a mother-like figure in office situations, as both types are viewed as difficult by others. "Difficult is the word for anything that isn't a man," she states.
The strongest female figure in this film appears as a cameo; Rosalind Russell's Hildy from His Girl Friday shows up in a montage of Kate and Richard doing family things. It is somewhat refreshing to see in Kate a female protagonist who is a perfect fit for her career. Pierce Brosnan's banker Jack falls for her (of course he does) as they work together on a big project. Olivia Munn's brash assistant Momo appreciates Kate, although she doesn't understand why she needs time away from the office.
Douglas McGrath's (Emma, Nicholas Nickleby) direction gives I Don't Know How She Does It a unique and kinetic feel, but I wondered at the prevalence of talking-head moments. There are so many that the film seems like an extended-length (and less funny) episode of Modern Family. The talking heads only feature the supporting characters. Busy Philipps is sadly underused as "momster" Wendy Best, perpetually on an elliptical machine, and rarely seen interacting with Kate. Perhaps Aline Brosh McKenna's screenplay is to blame? It's just a good idea run amok.
While I Don't Know How She Does It is enjoyable in the moment, the more I thought about the events in the movie, the more disappointed and slightly angered I felt. As it pats working mothers on the back, it piles on the guilt at the same time. Sure you love your high-powered job! But is it worth missing your son's first haircut? You're a woman, goodness knows it's nigh impossible to have it both ways.