Janet Maslin of The New York Times found the film's depiction of working women to be genuine but overall did not think highly of the film:
The 24-Hour Woman, in which a woman with a high-powered job tries to cope with the high-powered hassles of balancing career and family. But somebody on the other side of the camera has clearly been here and done this, and boy, does it show on screen... It would be nice to report that Ms. Savoca, whose True Love belongs high on any list of films rich in womanly wisdom and whose Household Saints and Dogfight were no less fearless, had made the most of such a golden opportunity to hit a nerve. But The 24-Hour Woman is an unexpectedly strained farce, and not often a very credible one at that. With the notable exception of a long, classic comedy-of-errors sequence about a working mother racing to her child's first birthday party, the film is otherwise a homey compendium of feminist talking points laced with awkward satire.[2]
However, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times enjoyed the film and rated it 3 stars out of his 4 star rating system and overall thought it was a pleasant experience:
The 24 Hour Woman is a message picture wrapped inside a screwball comedy, with a touch of satire aimed at TV talk shows. It doesn't all work, but it happens so fast we don't get stuck in the awkward parts.[3]
