This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 8:38 pm and is filed under Comedy, N, Romance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Director: Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, Alicia Keyes, Nicholas Art, Chris Evans, Paul Giamatti.
The Nanny Diaries is a simple semi-romantic comedy, that does manage find an amusing way to tell a pretty mundane story. The lead character is an anthropology grad and tells the story in the form of a cultural study of the ‘tribe’ of rich mothers on the NYC’s Upper East Side. Scarlett Johansson is a little band in the lead role, but not without appeal. Laura Linney is stronger as the self absorbed blue-blood who acts as if she is competing with Meryl’s Streep’s devilish Miranda Priestly character for the world’s worst boss (Miranda easily retains her title). The story is predictable and is a little short on laughs, but is still enjoyable enough.
Scarlett Johansson is Annie Braddock, a recent college grad who, feeling unable to deal with the pressures of a fast-paced work environment, decides to take an easy job as a nanny looking after a spoiled but sad little boy named Grayer (Nicholas Art). Unfortunately, she soon learns that there is nothing easy about working for Grayer’s mother, Mrs. X. Mrs. X is played by Laura Linney, who is appalling believable as a woman whose mission in life seems to be as self-absorbed, controlling and condescending as is possible in any country with a functioning justice system. Paul Giamatti is wasted in a small role as Mr. X and Chris Evans is just kind of there as a boring romantic interest known as ‘Harvard Hottie’.
This movie is rather overplayed and Johansson’s doormat character can be frustrating to watch (God, why doesn’t she just tell that b***h to go to h*** already???), but still there is enough here to be entertain for a hundred minutes or so. for those who enjoy light comedy.
