Plot: Architect Melanie Parker, divorced mother to six year old Sammy Parker, feels the need to take control of everything in her life as no one, including her mother Rita, housewife sister Liza, or musician ex-husband Eddie seem to provide any meaningful support, especially when she or Sammy need it. New York Daily News investigative reporter Jack Taylor - divorced father to six year old Maggie Taylor, Sammy's classmate at a Montessori school, and whose ex-wife Kristen lives in the same building as the Parkers - has a seemingly cavalier attitude toward life and parenting. Jack needs to take unexpected one week custody of Maggie as Kristen's childcare plans for Maggie during her and her new husband's honeymoon fall through at the last minute. It is in their roles as parents in missing Sammy and Maggie's class field trip on a Circle Line harbor cruise that Melanie and Jack meet, their differing personalities, especially in relation to the kids missing the trip, which is an initial and immediate source of animosity between the two. Without any other seeming option on their respective busy work days - Melanie who has an important meeting with her very particular boss Smith Leland and some lucrative clients on a final pitch, and Jack who has to deal with a possible libel suit against the paper when one of his sources in a story about mayoral corruption and the mob reneges on earlier statements, the crux of the story itself - Melanie and Jack reluctantly enter into an agreement to share child care responsibilities for Sammy and Maggie for the day, Melanie for the time outside of her meeting, and Jack outside of a press conference at City Hall later in the day. As they get into one mishap after another, both of a professional and personal nature, much of those with Sammy and Maggie just doing what they as six year olds do, Melanie and Jack can only admit to themselves that they can't get the other off of their minds in a romantic sense, anything happening from those thoughts if they can both get over their differences and admit to the other what they are feeling.
Alternative Plot: Melanie Parker (Michelle Pfeiffer) is an architect who needs to give a very important presentation. Jack Taylor (George Clooney) is a reporter looking to land a big scoop for his story. Both are single parents whose children, Sammy (Alex D. Linz) and Maggie (Mae Whitman), respectively, miss the bus for a field trip. Left with their kids on such a hectic day, Parker and Taylor decide to put aside their bickering and juggle baby-sitting duties, but the rambunctious children don't make it easy.
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