Still reeling from a difficult week which culminated in my son throwing his shoes at me and calling me a t**t, I sought some solace with a friend, who was also in need of a laugh and we went to see I Don’t Know How She Does It. The film met it’s objective in that we did indeed laugh, but unfortunately we laughed at it and not with it. We also joined in with the slow handclap at the end which is more then the film deserved.
Kate Reddy is well off, attractive, has a job she loves, a beautiful house in Boston, an adoring husband and two angelic children, who are cared for by a nanny whilst she is jetting off to very important meetings with handsome men. She is definitely one of life’s rollover lottery winners. But there is one big problem in her life: she is rather busy. And we, the austerity viewers, are meant to feel sorry for her.
The script was badly written, corny, out-dated and full of ludicrous and cruel stereotypes (the stay-at-home mums being the worst examples). Kate’s trials were nothing compared to the trials that many of us face on a daily basis and for that reason there was no dramatic tension whatsoever. Her infestation was cured by a single visit to a special salon where rubber-gloved ladies were paid to remove every last egg, nit and lice. There was no embarrassing conversation at the counter in Boots, no application of noxious shampoo, she didn’t spend hours every evening combing out her and her children’s hair and she didn’t spend days looking like she had dipped her head in an oil slick.
The film was an insulting portrait of the lives of parents, particularly mothers. It depresses me that film-makers, writers and journalists seem so out-of-touch with real life and shamelessly serve up this horse shit.