Kate Reddy (Sarah Jessica Parker) is a finance executive who is the primary breadwinner for the family. She has a great job, and a husband (Greg Kinnear) and two children. Kate is the epitome of the working mom. But things just got worse when the task of a lifetime comes along. She’s worked hard to put together a proposal for a big company, and she has another worker, Chris Bunce (Seth Meyers) who is waiting to take over for her and grab the credit for the job. But Jack Abelhammer (Pierce Brosnan) is her counterpart at the other company, and it requires Kate to travel often. Jack is handsome, a widower who is really attracted to someone like Kate. Things are tough all around, as Richard is sick and tired of his wife being gone all the time, and distracted and distant when she is home, and Kate really loves her job, and the attention. If this sounds like a recipe for disaster, it is in this 180 degree turn on the workaholic husband who neglects his wife.

This was a surprisingly cute movie. I didn’t go in expecting much, and I’ve never been a big Sarah Jessica Parker fan, but she was really perfect for this movie. I have to admit, I enjoyed her here more than any film I have seen of hers. Greg Kinnear was really good as the Dad who’s trying to keep his family together in spite of the hardships. It was good to see Pierce Brosnan who was excellent as the lonely widower. Then throw in Kelsey Grammer as Kate’s boss, and a bunch of other great characters, and it was a really fun movie. It’s cute, and it’s touching, and it does show the challenges of being someone who loves their family and loving their job. She doesn’t want to choose between either job, but the stress of trying to do everything is just too much.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this film, and I have to say I really enjoyed it. The time flew by watching one challenge after the other. Though things progress pretty much as you would expect, there are a lot of surprises here. This could have ended really ugly, but it stayed suspenseful up to the closing credits. Truly I don’t know how she does it.

==Written by Ed Goettman ==

==From: Ed's Review Dot Com (www.edsreview.com)==

The archetypal single gal from Sex and the City dives into family life in I Don't Know How She Does It. Kate Reddy, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, could easily be Carrie Bradshaw's alternate life: a rising finance analyst, Kate feels guilty for short-changing her husband (Greg Kinnear) and two children. When she gets the opportunity to work with a high-powered exec (Pierce Brosnan), the already tense family relationship gets stretched to the breaking point and Kate has to make some hard choices. I Don't Know How She Does It is pure formula, but executed well. The entire cast (also including Christina Hendricks as a single-mom best friend, Kelsey Grammer as an overbearing boss, Seth Meyers as a sniping rival, and a scene-stealing Olivia Munn as Kate's assistant) play their parts with skill, while Parker's rapport with Kinnear is particularly warm and persuasive. Moreover, you have to admire the sheer chutzpah of hammering home political points about double standards in the workplace and then delivering a fairy-tale ending. Men have realized the importance of family over work in dozens upon dozens of cookie-cutter heartwarming flicks; apparently it's time that women got the opportunity to do the same. No doubt this signifies some important cultural shift; college theses are waiting to be written about it. --Bret Fetzer