With a crowbar, a bicycle helmet, and a tub of Vaseline, is my guess. Oh, Lord, did I loathe this movie. Now I know that most standard-issue romantic comedies deserve our spite, but the new Sarah Jessica Parker vehicle I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT It is not a romantic comedy, unless you include the contemptuous level of flirting that goes on between Parker's working mom Kate and the head of her company, played by the still devilishly handsome Pierce Brosnan. I'm pretty certain the goal of this inane film was to capsulize the plight of women who want it all--a career, marriage, and kids--and that's a fine subject for a movie willing to take its subject with a degree of seriousness and respect. But director Douglas McGrath (basing his movie on the novel by Allison Pearson) wants us to laugh at Kate and those around her, while still forcing life lesson after life lesson into our heads with cinematic subtlety equivalent to a wrecking ball to the right ear.
And there are some interesting kickers. First off, Carrie, er, I mean, Parker narrates the movie. Gee, I wonder where they got that idea. Thanks to the dumbing down of all morals to this story courtesy of ham-handed dialogue, "Sex and the City" fans will have no trouble recognizing all of the Carrie-isms in Kate, trust me. Second, some of the secondary character (including those played by Christina Hendricks as the best friend, Olivia Munn as the assistant, and Seth Meyers as the office rival) speak directly to the camera as if being interviewed for some documentary about the greatest of Kate. Holy shit, I hope the makers of WHEN HARRY MET SALLY sue like a motherfucker. Seriously, who besides a select few sitcoms do the interview thing anymore. The narration and interviews represent the worst kind of lazy writing from screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, and it all underscores what is a terrible, terrible film that probably would have been just as terrible without those narrative devices.
Greg Kinnear is saddled with the job of Kate's recently unemployed architect husband, who bitches and moans because his wife is spending too much time in the office. He's not always like that, but when he is, I wanted to throttle him. Let's do the math, dude: Your wife is out of the house making money to support you and your two children, something you are not doing. I'm sorry if that makes you feel emasculated, but suck it up and go make me a pot pie, sweetheart. Hendricks (who can also be seen in this week's DRIVE) is nothing more than a walking message board loaded with slogans about how working women are treated differently than working men. Yeah, I saw NINE TO FIVE too, Red. Now go balance the checkbook. Olivia Munn (who I never thought was even a little bit funny before this movie) plays the somewhat robotic Momo, a workhorse of an assistant who never wants kids and is married to her job. She likes Kate, but considers her choices insane for a career-minded woman. Yes, Momo is one-dimensional comic relief.
None of the other actors are even worth mentioning, since they glide along this movie's surface just like the film itself skates across the issues it's pretending to address. We spend the duration of I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT waiting for either a disaster at home that will drag Kate away from work to deal with, or an emergency at work that will tear her away from her family. One such scene set on Thanksgiving Day--when Kate must deal with a client early the next morning causing her to fly out right after dinner--seems so unbelievable that I refused to believe it, so there.
This film oversimplifies what I believe is a serious issue. And no, I'm not saying you can't laugh at serious issues, but I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT belittles its case and sets the women's movement back to the early 1980s at least. The movie suffers from the classic flaw of telling instead of showing, and it doesn't so much stop the story's momentum as much as it keeps it from ever accelerating in the first place. Cliches, stereotypes, and decades-old themes are no basis for a modern look at women's issues in the workplace or in the home. Or maybe it is, and I'm just threatened by powerful women. You decide.
