Film review: I Don’t Know How She Does It - just do it

It may be hard to swallow for some, but the producers have served up some good, clean fun.

Can women really have it all? Yes they can, insists this fall’s latest family drama I Don’t Know How She Does It. Starring Sarah Jessica Parker in the lead role, the movie follows the trials of Kate Reddy, one half of an ambitious workaholic couple based in Boston. With two children, Kate and her husband Richard are always on the brink of disaster as they try to juggle their careers with ever-increasing responsibilities as parents. Things take a turn for the worse when Kate, an investment banker, is selected to handle a big project that will have her travelling frequently to hobnob with her firm’s top boss — a major boost to her career that could leave her family in shambles.

Based on a novel by Allison Pearson, I Don’t Know How She Does It is eerily similar to Sarah Jessica Parker’s own life — which may be why she slips into her role as a harried mom with such ease. As a mother of three and a sought-after actress and film executive in the real world, Parker has, by her own admission, had to face all the guilt, sleepless nights and exhaustion that every working mom has to deal with. In the movie and in real life, SJP also seems to overshadow her amiable and accommodating husband — I would venture a guess that if Richard were played by SJP’s actual hubby, Matthew Broderick, what we’d end up with would be a very accurate picture of how the Parker household is run.

But whatever the cause, SJP has fleshed out Kate’s character with well-oiled smoothness. Her natural flair for comedy shines through as she elicits sympathy and bemusement from the viewers in turn. She is helped along the way by a great cast: Greg Kinnear, who plays the husband, is predictable enough to keep the focus on SJP yet manages to avoid being a total bore. Kate’s top boss, the one she has to impress during her big project, is played by Peirce Brosnan to good effect. Thankfully, Brosnan seems to have left his tanned Bond days behind him and lets us have a peek at the inner workings of a very important man who also happens to be a big ol’ softie.

This is all good stuff so far, but that’s where the problem lies. The movie doesn’t really tell the viewer ‘how she does it’ because Kate seems to be congenitally lucky. In real life, who has the kind of luck she has? For Kate, somehow the nanny always manages to swoop in and save the day, and her boss, though outwardly evil, secretly nurtures a heart of gold. Even SJP would have to agree that Matt has his off days — so why is Richard Reddy the picture of a perfect husband?

The answer is this: everything is perfect because the movie wants to convince you that motherhood, no matter what challenges it presents, is worth it. While it denigrates WAG-style, career-less moms, the film also scoffs at any suggestion that a single woman, or for that matter a married woman, could find true fulfillment without bringing forth a baby into this world. It’s a premise that may be hard to swallow for some, but if you can manage to look past that sticking point, the producers of I Don’t Know How She Does It have served up some good, clean fun.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, December 11^th, 2011.