I Don't Know How She Does It Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

I Don't Know How She Does It Blu-ray Movie Review

Maybe we'd know how she does it if her movie had a point.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman December 21, 2011

She just keeps going.

Truly, there are infomercials out there have more depth and meaning than I Don't Know How She Does It. "I'm a busy mom with a career and two kids. Life can get preeeety hectic with soccer practice, ballet recitals, and deadlines at work. That's why I depend on this widget to make my life so much easier. Thanks widget manufacturer!" Groan. I Don't Know How She Does It is a case of "art" imitating "life." In this case, it's the story of a career woman who tries, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so successfully, to make time for her family and do things right -- she's a perfectionist, her kid can't take anything but the finest baked goods to the school bake sale, no sir-eee-bob -- even when she's up against tight deadlines and working on minutes of sleep, sleep she desperately needs but sacrifices in the name of, time and again, going over her "list" of things to do. It's a good thing this busy mom also has a husband to carry part of the load (and no, he's not a freeloader who orders her around in a wife beater to bring him more beer; he's also a career, goal-oriented mover-and-shaker sort who, presumably, carries his share of the familial burden, or so the audience must assume, considering he's developed only to the point of serving as a prop in the life and times story of Super Mom), not to mention a maid who comes in every day to take care of the kids, wash the dishes, and perform all the other household chores because Super Mom might just explode if anything else was added to her appointment book. I Don't Know How She Does It is basically a bad reality show edited down into a movie. It follows a career woman doing career-advancing things and fretting that she doesn't have more time for her family. Can she figure out how to put on the brakes or tell her boss "no" from time to time? And that's pretty much it. This is one of the most shallow, pointless movies ever made. It goes nowhere, does nothing, and teaches only, well, never mind, nothing. It does show that, yes, some people lead busy lives. Not everybody can sit around and play Call of Duty or watch game show reruns all day long, as tempting as that may sound. Hooray for that little slice of information. Never knew that. Thanks for heads up.

How does she do it? She gets a lot of help from Mr. Crackberry.

Kate Reddy (Sarah Jessica Parker) is a super-busy mom who would love nothing more than to spend all of her free time with her two kids and her husband Richard (Greg Kinnear), but her career is always getting in her way. But that doesn't deter her from doing whatever she can to make sure her kids have it good at school. She sacrifices her own free time so her daughter will look good in front of other kids and make her a mom worthy of love. She's able to squeeze out the needed hours every day, but when her boss (Kelsey Grammar) informs her that she's landed a big new client (Pierce Brosnan), her life promises to become a whole lot more hectic. She'll have to travel even more and see her kids even less, which bothers her but, hey, this is an opportunity too good to pass up. She'll need all the support she can get, be it from her dark, childless assistant Momo (Olivia Munn) or her perky best friend Allison (Christina Hendricks). As Kate's schedule overloads and her client becomes more of a spouse to her than her lawfully wedded husband, she begins to realize that maybe this whole gung-ho thing with work isn't working out the way she had planned. Can Kate find the extra hours in the day to make her family life fruitful, or will she have to choose between dumping the family or ditching the job to bring back some semblance of order to her chaotic life?

Eat Pray Love told the ridiculously non-relatable story of a woman with the means and the time to drop everything in her life and travel abroad for months on end, eating fine cuisine and meeting interesting people while in search of herself. Congratulations to her for achieving enough in her life to allow her to embark on such an endeavor, but her story was little more than a "yay for me" glimpse into a life well beyond the capabilities of the common person in the name of some greater calling than following the daily grind. For Kate Reddy (I Don't Know How She Does It's main character, for those who don't remember; don't worry, it's difficult to keep these folks in mind considering just how poor a job the movie does in giving its audience a reason to remember them as anything but "mom," "husband," "boss" "annoying friend A," "annoying friend B," and so on), it's the daily grind of a busy life that's the focus of this story, which is infinitely more relatable but just as thematically purposeless as the story behind Eat Pray Love. Kate finds her way not through escape but through total immersion into her work at the expense of her family, which in turns leads her to realize that she's so far removed from what matters in her life that she can't even see it when she turns around for a look. That's all fine and dandy, but the movie is so flat, so completely uninspired, and shares nothing that isn't common sense to everyone in the audience that one wonders why the movie was even made. I Don't Know How She Does It is terribly predictable and it repeats the same sort of problems at exactly the same cadence throughout. It's "mommy can't do A because of B" ad nauseam until she tells B to take a hike and that she's not taking it anymore and needs to spend more time on A. The movie is that linear, that bland, that purposeless.

Worse, the characters are astonishingly flat and boring, embodied in Kate's office assistant/whoever she is who speaks in monotone and who is, maybe, supposed to be Kate's polar opposite, but who knows. The movie makes no effort to paint its characters as anyone worth rooting for, but then again there's no story here worth rooting for, either. This is too flat for even an after school special that spells out its themes in language even those with negative IQs can understand. What's really sad is that I Don't Know How She Does It literally does spell out some of its most important elements -- it names its characters via on-screen text -- and darn it if not every single one of them is forgotten ten seconds later. Worse, the film's laughs are generic and absolutely predictable, such as when Kate sends the wrong instant message to her client instead of her friend, or when she learns she may have lice, only so she can walk around work with her hair in a mess. The movie occasionally chimes in with little random questions that go unanswered, like "why do men's shoes have to be polished, while women’s shoes can be flat and dull?" Is this a movie about the battle of the sexes or about a busy career woman? None of it makes a lick of sense, and when it's revealed that Kate has a maid who handles all the daily chores at home (even if she does come in a few minutes late), it's even more difficult to care about her "plight," particularly when it's a "plight" she's put upon herself, not something imposed on her by some totalitarian government or an abusive husband. But at least to Kate's credit, she takes responsibility for her own actions and doesn't look to anyone but herself to solve her problems for her. Kudos to her for working through things as she should, but the film remains a pointless endeavor that does nothing more than look at the life and times of a busy modern woman.

I Don't Know How She Does It Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

I Don't Know How She Does It might not make for a good watch, but the film's Blu-ray disc at least presents viewers with a nice-looking image. Anchor Bay's 1080p, 1.78:1-framed transfer delivers very strong, natural details in most every scene, whether facial and clothing textures, the rough brick exteriors of buildings, or the fabrics of furniture. Clarity is quite good, too, and the image is stabilized thanks to the retention of a light but critical grain structure. Colors are vibrant and favor a very warm shade, and flesh tones follow suit, painting all characters with a heavy golden tint. Black levels are sturdy. Banding is heavy in those scenes where Kate's "list" floats in the sky above her bed, but the image is otherwise free of any major eyesores. For those who like the movie or wish to give it a spin despite its critical drubbing, Anchor Bay has provided a handsome transfer that should please all who choose to give the movie a chance.

I Don't Know How She Does It Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

I Don't Know How She Does It's DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack is of a suitably high quality and serves the film's limited sonic structure nicely. This is a basic, light Comedy presentation that offers up airy and crisp music, music that enjoys a nice sense of spacing and accuracy. Light ambience works its way into the mix with regularity, whether office and restaurant atmosphere or the din of a cramped child's birthday party or a crowded city street. Balance is good, with the front portion of the soundstage carrying the load, and the back speakers only chiming in for effect. Dialogue is centered and dominates the audio. This is far from a memorable listen, but Anchor Bay's track does all it can with the film's innately limited material.

I Don't Know How She Does It Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

I Don't Know How She Does It contains only one supplement: A Conversation with Best-Selling Author Allison Pearson (1080p, 7:00).

I Don't Know How She Does It Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I Don't Know How She Does It is an unimaginative, go-nowhere movie that offers no insight other than to show its audience that, yes, busy people do exist (who knew?). Flat characters, no direction, and a repetitive structure all add up to one of the worst movies of 2011, and maybe the year's most purposeless, which begs the question, just who is this movie's target audience? It's certainly not people like Kate Reddy, who don't have the time to go see the movie, and if they did, they certainly wouldn't want to see their lives rehashed on the screen. That may be this movie's greatest mystery. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray release is, unsurprisingly, short on extras, but the studio has provided solid video and audio presentations. Skip it.