I Don't Know How She Does It

(2011) The Weinstein Company

For a title which says it all, I DON”T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT is yet another one of those movies that deals with a married working mother of two and how she deals with the trials and tribulations of family life while working in a high pressure environment outside the home. Lovely Sarah Jessica Parker plays Kate Reddy, a Boston-bred, overachieving super-mom, whose work ethic is no less important than being the perfect wife and mother of two adoring children. She works for a high-powered investment firm, while her husband (the always reliable Greg Kinnear) is an out-of-work architect. Coincidentally, Kate’s best friend, a single mom named Allison (Christina Hendricks), also must balance her career and raise her kids in much the same fashion. Then, there’s Momo Hahn (Olivia Munn), a corporate “robot” at the investment firm where Kate works, who vows to stay single and childless throughout her life, but is caught off-guard when she discovers that she is pregnant! To add to this mixture, Kate finds that she has to work on a prospective account that would involve doing some extensive traveling in order to close the deal.

In the meantime, her husband, Richard, has just landed an architectural position and his days being at home caring for the kids are also numbered. On her initial business trip to Manhattan, Kate meets her new business associate, Jack Abelhammer, played by the dashingly suave, unmarried Pierce Brosnan, who bears an amazing similarity to a middle-aged Cary Grant, and the two get down to business hoping to land the new account. Naturally, this is where the love triangle appears and Jack becomes rather smitten with his lovely co-worker (as does the rest of the audience) resulting in some mild flirtations. What ensues has all been done before, but the manner in which it is all executed makes for an extremely fun picture, which is reminiscent of the romantic comedies of the thirties.
Combining comedy with a touch of farce, I DON”T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT, has many funny devices in the way it delivers its rather familiar plotline. Many of the characters tell their various stories directly to the audience, sprinkling each little monologue with witty lines and double entendres. While many critics will bash a film like this for its lack of originality, the saving grace of the picture is the superb cast, who all seem to be having a great time throughout. Sarah Jessica Parker has never been lovelier and Pierce Brosnan’s Cary Grant-like performance shows what we’ve been missing since Mr. Grant’s last film appearance in 1966. There’s even an “inside joke” with Greg Kinnear and Sarah Jessica Parker watching a DVD of the 1940 classic screwball comedy His Girl Friday with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, thereby justifying the comparison. So, if you would like to spend 90 minutes with some very likable characters, coping with the pressures of daily life in a most humorous fashion, then I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT, will provide some terrific escapist fun for all.

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