'I Don't Know How She Does It' -- 2 stars

PG-13; 1:35 running time

Thwarted by the same awkward timing that zonked "Confessions of a Shopaholic" two years ago, just when shopaholics began to seem extra-heinous, the film version of "I Don't Know How She Does It" doesn't know how to do what I think it's trying to do. I think it's trying to acknowledge the real-world pressures shaping millions of women's work/life to-do lists. When the investment firm wizard played by Sarah Jessica Parker tells a colleague she got into fund management because people today are "scared to death about their future," it's meant sincerely, and Parker -- even in a disposable comedy with a puddinglike consistency and the aftertaste of something other than real sugar ¿ does not oversell it. -- Michael Phillips

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