‘I Don’t Know’ wastes talents of cast with bad script, clichés
What do you get when you mix talented actors (Sarah Jessica Parker, Greg Kinnear), a screenplay based on a best-selling novel and a topic dear to so many women’s hearts – specifically, how to balance work with a personal life?
If you’re thinking “sounds like a great movie,” you might be right. But in the case of “I Don’t Know How She Does It,” a lack of good writing is the missing ingredient in the recipe for success.
The predictable plot is just one of the problems. Kate Reddy (Parker) works for a high-profile investment firm in Boston. She also has two kids and a husband (Kinnear) who adores her.
Kate is overscheduled, exhausted and conflicted. She finds herself cutting corners as a mom so she can meet the demands of her job.
And then she lands a big project at work, and guess what? Things get worse at home, especially when Kate starts spending so much time in New York with the handsome Jack Abelhammer (Pierce Brosnan).
Kate is more cliché than character. She keeps saying she loves her family and her job, but we only get to know her superficially. There’s not much tender interaction with her children. There’s no sense of what drives her as a working woman.
Instead, there’s a series of visual gags and one-liners: Kate trying to get in an elevator at work with party balloons. Kate smushing a store-bought pie to make it look homemade. Kate struggling with her tights, unaware that her video conference call has begun.
Other characters get the same one-note treatment – from her husband, to her co-workers, to her mother-in-law (poor Jane Curtin), to her frenemies, the stay-at-home moms.
The stereotypical pitting of working mom (food on all her dresses!) vs. stay-at-home mom (spends the whole morning in the gym!) verges on the offensive. Forgive me for not having a sense of humor about it, but pitting moms against each other is destroying the village it does take to raise a child.
The voiceovers used to move the story along are a sign that the writers here were reduced to crutches. But again, these characters are caught up in clichés, simply interrupting the almost imperceptible plot for silly or crass jokes.
In the end, I couldn’t help but wonder how so many good actors (including Christina Hendricks from “Mad Men,” Kelsey Grammer and Seth Meyers) wound up in this unclever, tedious comedy.
In short, I don’t know why they did it.