"The 24 Hour Woman" might have been a good movie if only the filmmaker could have decided what she wanted it to be.
Is it a broad farce about daytime television? Or is it a touching parenting drama?
Writer-director Nancy Savoca apparently had no idea, and audience members will probably leave the theater scratching their heads in bewilderment.
Compounding the problem is the fact that the film concentrates on the wrong set of characters, and, frankly, features way too many. An awful, out-of-place ending doesn't help, either.
One thing the movie isn't lacking, however, is a talented cast, though most of the actors are wasted in relatively small roles.
Rosie Perez (who also co-produced) stars as Grace Santos, a New Yorker who has it all — including a dream job as producer for a daytime television program (from which the film gets its name) and an almost too-good-to-be-true husband (Diego Serrano).
But her life is turned upside-down when she discovers she is pregnant. First, the show's host, Margo Lynn (Karen Duffy), announces the news to the world at-large. Then, ratings-hungry executive producer Joan Marshall (Patti LuPone) decides to capitalize on the event and change the show's focus to motherhood.
If that isn't enough, Grace is woefully unprepared to be a working mother. So, to help pick up the slack, she hires a production assistant, Madeline Labelle (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, from "Secrets and Lies") — a mother of three who knows those struggles all too well.
It sounds like an interesting premise, but Perez and Jean-Baptiste have far too few scenes together, and Savoca lets the possibilities for interaction between the characters slip through her fingers.
Worse, the film's shrill tone and frantic pacing — even in some of the more dramatic scenes — is headache-inducing. And, as expected, Perez lets loose with a tirade of profanities throughout much of the film's second half.
In comparison, Jean-Baptiste is a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, the story line about her relationship with her husband (Wendell Pierce) takes a back seat to everything else.
"The 24 Hour Woman" is rated R for considerable profanity, some gunplay and violent tantrums, female nudity (mostly involving mothering) and use of some vulgar slang terms.