I Don’t Know How She Does It is a film so into the women-empowerment shtick that it undermines its whole message. Forest for the trees. *sigh* The problem starts with the introductory scenes. 1:14 a.m. and workaholic Kate (Sarah Jessica Parker) is in a cab coming home from a business trip. But her daughter’s school has a bake sale the next day and she has nothing to bring, oh no! Then, as is standard for the genre, we take a small problem and we embellish as much as we think we can get away with: Kate would gladly stay up late baking something, but “all the stores that sell baking supplies are closed at this hour,” so naturally, she finds an all-night pie and pyrex merchant. Oh. Say, what is this magical land in which grocery stores are closed past midnight, but bakers are up? “Boston” you say. Hmm. Naturally, the pie “has to look handmade” so Kate can compete with the Joneses. Now you’re just making up controversy. Sure, it happens, but gimme a break. Kate ends up putting the pie in an ill-fitting container and fudging. Yeah, I get peer pressure along these lines. You know what bugs me? Kate never asks husband Richard (Greg Kinnear) to get involved. All it would have taken is a single phone call. What? He can’t figure out homemade dessert for the bake sale? You couldn’t even try? He seems like a pretty nice guy.
The fallacious argument in Don’t Know is like when somebody tries to describe his “really busy” day to you, which included “going to the shoe store and post office and food shopping and running three errands and …” However, when you deconstruct the day, you realize that the post office visit only included dropping off letters to be mailed, and the post office is right next to the shoe store so you didn’t need an extra stop and that was one of three errands being counted as well. This shouldn’t take away from the fact that somebody really did have a busy day, but it does and I think less of you for it.
There’s a whole Superwoman mythology we’ve bought into as a culture. Women have it harder. I don’t deny this. I think women 
do have it harder. I think women are expected to get married, have children, raise the children, work harder at marriage and hold down gainful employment in our modern age. That’s rough. But the inability to concede – you were perfectly fine not to see your daughter for days, but making bake sale goodies from scratch is a priority? – combined with the unwillingness to ask for help – why did you get married again? — undermines the mythology. At this point, it’s impossible to take this movie seriously. Don’t get me started about how a top-notch six figure professional of any kind, man or woman, 1) missends an irresponsible, personal e-mail to seven figure client 2) spends a one-on-one meeting scratching his/her head for fear of lice and 3) includes a sonogram in a Powerpoint presentation. These are things that describe “people who can’t get jobs,” not executive follies. You can see my frustration here – the point of this movie is “women have it harder.” Ok, I’m a willing audience. State your case. Oh. Well, where I’m from, sending the wrong e-mail to somebody important is grounds for “we no longer will be in need of your services.” Making this part of your argument insults both of us.
What draws Sarah Jessica Parker so to these roles of mock-empowerment? Has nobody told her that the job by itself requires a level of responsibility? I see the commitment. You are a workaholic; you have alienated your family, great. Now show me the professionalism that one would expect from a hedge fund engineer.
Rated PG-13, 89 Minutes
D: Douglas McGrath
W: Aline Brosh McKenna
Genre: Anything you can do, I can do better …
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: People who eat their feelings.
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Cliché haters.
