The 24 Hour Woman

An observation: if your lead actor has a vocal quality that tends to border on the uncomfortably shrill, maybe it's not such a swell idea to pitch the tone of your entire movie to match. So overbearingly hectic that it makes last year's Jerry Springer movie Ringmaster look positively sedate by comparison, The 24 Hour Woman rapidly becomes The 92 Minute Headache, a strident series of high-pitched shouting matches and bogus emotional crises. Its premise--producer of insipid morning show (Perez, playing a character rather pointedly named Grace, as in Under Pressure) finds herself dragged before the lens when she unexpectedly becomes pregnant, and must ultimately choose between career fast-track and hands-on motherhood--is both trite (gee, wonder what her decision will be?) and dishonest (say, why does she have to make a decision at all?). In addition, its pace is ineptly arrhythmic, with some scenes ending abruptly and others droning on and on and on. Not recommended. (M. D'Angelo)