…instantly dispels two myths… the first being that Sarah Jessica Parker can’t be taken seriously in any role outside of her beloved “Carrie Bradshaw,” and the second that working mothers can be good parents even if they’re behind a desk. Parker effortlessly fits the role of mom-with-substance instead of single girl with in Manolos. Director Doug McGrath joyfully tackles the Allison Pearson best-selling novel with perfect casting and a revelation that humor might be the answer to life’s
annoyances. Kate Reddy (Sarah Jessica Parker) is a working Boston mother of two, married to the sexy Richard Reddy
(Greg Kinnear) her very understanding and unemployed husband who says she’s a “juggler.”
The movie opens with so much tension and chaos it leaves the audience worrying that they’ll be exhausted and
need a nap by the thirty minute mark. But then it happens… When Kate gets to feel like a woman – dressing up for work, taking meetings, and dealing with her boss (Kelsey Grammar) we know there’s more to appreciate than diaper bags and sticky cookies in her briefcase. But when the office sends her on assignment to win over a client, the ultra-cool and sophisticated Jack Abelhammer (Pierce Brosnan) we sink in, we like her, we’re calmed, and we appreciate the quiet of the late evening business dinners, the clickingof glasses, the look of letting go.
We see that despite all Kate’s surrounding world of frazzled motherhood, our hero needs to have a career in order to complete her every-woman. Her real balancing act is that of balancing the need to remain true to herself while being the best mother she can be. And isn’t that what all women ideally want? Kate’s job is her outlet that oddly diffuses her scattered loyalties, less she ends up like that angry stay-at-home mom on the stair-stepper. Perfectly pulling off and resting the argument that only good mothers stay at home, this movie could never have worked ten years ago. It’s nice to know in a time when women need to empower each other and pull together, there’s hope that a pie-baking mom of the PTA, might offer to pinch hit for a working mom. And certainly, lend a hand to a single working mom, like Kate’s best friend, Allison (Krsitian Hendricks.) Three tiaras