The Nanny Diaries

Plot synopsis:
21-year-old Annie Braddock (Scarlett Johansson), has just graduated from Montclair State University. She has no idea what or who she wants to be. One day, while sitting in the park, Annie sees a young boy about to be hit by a vehicle. Annie saves him and meets the boy's mother, who we meet as Mrs. X (Laura Linney). When she introduces herself as "Annie", Mrs. X mistakes her words for "Nanny" and hires her to look after Grayer (Nicholas Art), the boy she saved (Mrs. X also continues to call her "Nanny" instead of "Annie" throughout the film). Annie lies to her mother about taking a job at a bank and, in reality, moves in with the X's to be the nanny for Grayer.
Life with the incredibly privileged X's is not what she thought it would be, and her life is complicated further when she falls for "Harvard Hottie" (Chris Evans), who lives in the building. Interspersed with her life as the X's nanny are her interactions with "Harvard Hottie" as well as her longtime friend Lynette (Alicia Keys). She also continues to keep her mother in the dark about her real job, giving her regular but false progress reports about her job. Further complications arise when her Mom decides to visit her, forcing Annie to pretend Lynette and her roommate are a couple and that their apartment is Annie's apartment. Her mother finds out the truth when Annie desperately calls her for help during a scary moment when Grayer becomes severely ill.
After a rough start, Annie eventually bonds with Grayer and discovers that he is actually a sweet and loving child who is neglected by both his parents. Parallel to this, Annie begins to also notice that Grayer is not the only one being neglected: Mrs. X is as well, with Mr. X (Paul Giamatti) constantly being cruel to her and committing subtly obvious adultery. Mrs. X makes numerous attempts to make her husband love her, including telling him she is pregnant with their second child. Annie soon realizes that Mrs. X's own cruel treatment of her is due to Mrs. X's growing frustrations from her dysfunctional marriage.
Things take a turn for the worse during a family trip with the X's to Nantucket. She overhears Mrs. X telling a friend during a party that she has installed a 'nanny cam' at their home in the city and plans to fire Annie after viewing footage showing Annie lovingly tending to Grayer (with Mrs. X grossly exaggerating her findings from the 'nanny cam'), Mr. X attempts to seduce Annie by inappropriately grabbing her just as Mrs. X enters the kitchen, resulting in Annie getting fired and sent back to the city with her final payment ... of just $40 (along with a puppy Mr. X had given Grayer when they arrived in the Hamptons but foisted off on her as she was leaving). Flying into a rage, she looks for and finds the 'nanny cam' in the X's house and records her feelings toward the X's. Mrs. X brings the tape to the school meeting for the Upper East Side mothers. Thinking that the tape will show Annie feeding Grayer peanut butter and jelly, she requests the coordinator to play it for everyone to see. All other parents in the room hear as Annie reveals the real relationship between the X's, in the process making Mrs. X come to terms with her own reality and false happiness.
Annie continues to date "Harvard Hottie", whose real name is revealed to be Hayden. She is temporarily living with Lynette and her roommate, and pursuing her growing interest in anthropology, much of which she learned through her time as the X's nanny.
A few months later, Hayden hands her a letter from Mrs. X. Written in the letter is an apology and news about how Mrs. X left Mr. X (and that her second pregnancy was a false one that Mrs. X invented to keep Mr. X interested in her), is raising Grayer alone and making stronger attempts to bond with him (and successfully doing so), and Grayer's overall improvement. She expresses her gratitude to Annie for waking her up and changing her life. Also in the letter, Mrs. X addresses Annie for the first time by her real name (instead of Nanny), and signs the letter with her own first name, Alexandra (instead of Mrs. X).

Tags: satire, flashback

Review:
"The Nanny Diaries" did not get very good reviews but I liked the previews so I decided to see it instead of another movie that got much better reviews and I'm glad I did."The Nanny Diaries" is entertaining the entire time.
It might not have you rolling in the aisles like "Superbad," but it is not that kind of movie.The main reason to see this film is because of Scarlett Johansson.
Not only is her acting phenomenal, she is the world's most beautiful nanny.A lot of the professional reviews seem to have been disappointed by "The Nanny Diaries" because it was written and directed by the same people who did "American Splendor." They were expecting something more like that film.
I thought it was better than "The Devil Wears Prada," which it often gets compared to."The Nanny Diaries" is absolutely mandatory viewing for Scarlett Johansson fans.
"The Nanny Diaries" certainly has to be a feel good summer movie, it's entertaining and sweet and a coming of age story as told thru one characters point of view.
The rest of the movie follows her on her adventure as she learns what it takes to be a nanny in NY, and also learns what it takes to survive life.-The film-making technique is not necessarily an original one in which the main character narrates the whole story but what helps in this one is that its quite an entertaining narration and she doesn't narrate the whole movie so it does help.
The odd visual style is also nicely done with some unique effects and one really weird scene in which we see Annie flying through New York all Mary Poppins style.-Scarlett Johansson is building quite an impressive resume with this brilliant movie.
Yeah she seems like z shrewd cold hearted woman when we first meet her, but after getting to know her husband Mr. X played the great Paul Giamatti, we begin to understand why she does certain things that she does.
Though the directors cast of some of today's well-known stars like Scarlet Johanssen, Paul Giamatti, Laura Linley, Donna Murphy, and Chris Evans, the movie was bland and lacked a primary theme.The movie begins with Annie Braddock (Johanssen) a college graduate who is unsure what to do with her life now.
Laura Linley does a decent job as bitchy self-centered Mrs. X, and Paul Giamatti does a fantastic job playing the workaholic father with maybe two lines total.The only reason to see this movie would be to compare it to the novel, but be forewarned that it will be an outrageous disappointment.
Throw in a grating voice-over and cardboard characters and I am definitely OUT.Somehow a film written and directed by the "American Splendor" team of Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman, starring Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti comes across as shallow, poorly written and, at times, laughably unwatchable.The stereotypes are flowing big time with rich, snobby, out of touch, self-absorbed "upper east siders" on display at every turn.
Throw in the "Harvard Hottie" (played by the human torch, Chris Evans) who has the dead mom, boarding school childhood misery going for him, a few misplaced "Mary Poppins" tributes, and the brilliant but poor Anthropology major (Scarlett) who just wants to find herself working as a nanny, and you have the makings of a cheap Oxygen channel comdram.
They made the Nanny character (now Annie) a poor New Jersey girl, raised by a single mother, who has no idea what she wants to do with her life.
Such a pity, because the book is brilliant, and part of what makes it so good is Nanny's apt social commentary, not her shock of being thrown into the deep end of nice, normal, Jersey girl vs rich, stupid, Manhatanities.
As this personal drama unfolds, Grayer becomes attached to Annie, and she responds in kind, which of course, can only lead to complications.As much as I like Scarlett Johansson, she is not a natural at this type of character-driven comedy (unless you count the skits she does on "Saturday Night Live" where she plays Lexie, the glammed-up Jersey girl pointing repeatedly to chandeliers and marble columns).
Broadway great Donna Murphy shows up effectively as Annie's working-nurse mother, Julie White has a few funny moments as an unctuous training seminar leader, and pop singer Alicia Keys plays the requisite best pal role with bohemian spunk.
The film seems to mainly focus on Annie's view of the upper class (as she works as a nanny for such a family) and therein lies a danger, where she pretty much (as we are shown), in her own assessment generalizes her conclusion from one experience and in the other cases, with one encounter.Now regarding the family she works for, Mr.X is a complete caricature of the businessman jerk who constantly cheats on his wife by shagging anything wearing short skirts or hotpants and he is bitter towards his family (including wife, son and even own mother).
For this wonderful act she is swiftly offered a job as his nanny, a task which turns out to be impossibly demanding.The child's mom, and Annie's boss, is a rich-bitch socialite played by Laura Linney.
Like a good anthropology student, Annie protects her employer's name in the film, so everyone calls mommy Mrs X - though if this is meant to give an air of authentic Diary-narration I remained less than convinced.
Mrs X supplies the crosses in this star-crossed romance, and you don't need a Ph.D to guess the ending.Underlying Nanny Diaries is some biting satirical comment showing the divide between rich and poor and suggesting marrying a loaded husband is another form of sell-out, in spite of all those pressures to 'succeed.' Unfortunately any such depth is quickly washed out with bland chick-flick super-rinse and you'll be left scratching your head if you expected a point.
But I was astounded to find the alternative tempting her is not a decent career but a 'Harvard Hottie.' The best Nanny Diaries achieves is exposing the horrible world of New York nannying; but it this takes serious subject matter and then treats the audience as if they have an IQ of room temperature.Dialogue fizzles with such standards as, "Money can't buy you love." Although the reply, "But mummy pays you money and I love you," is probably one of the better lines (and as good as it gets).
Nanny Diaries isn't even bad enough to be good.Annie says, "My desire to be an observer of life was actually keeping me from having one." There are pointed references to Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, and even The Devil Wears Prada.
Edith Wharton wrote about this kind of woman really well, and it's no accident that Laura Linney was a superbly cruel, lovely and convincing Bertha Dorsett in an otherwise forgettable film of THE HOUSE OF MIRTH.So don't watch THE NANNY DIARIES.
What it is though is a decent enough comedy, with some nice laughs along the way.It's a surprise to see that Johansson is so good at comedy and is well supported by Laura Linney in her role.If you're looking for an easy going comedy then this one has a lot going for it..
Johansson plays 'Annie', a recent college grad who takes a job as a live in nanny for the very wealthy X's, looking after their troubled son -who I suppose was meant to be cute and precocious but for the most part I just found bratty and annoying.The story itself was okay, it didn't blow me away or anything, but it was enjoyable enough.
Recent college grad Annie Braddock (Scarlett Johansson) is all set for a career in business when she quite literally falls into a position as nanny for the four-year-old son (Nicholas Art) of a snooty, self-absorbed Upper East Side socialite named Alexandra X, played by a sadly miscast Laura Linney (among many of the movie's wearisomely cutesy touches is not giving a surname to the family that hires her).Based on the novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, "The Nanny Diaries" is, unfortunately, every bit as predictable and trite as its simpleminded premise would lead one to expect.
Beyond trafficking in just about every stereotype and cliché imaginable - the heartless, neurotic, slave-driving elitists; the sensitive knight-in-shining armor love interest (Chris Evans); the nagging, free-living best friend; the lecherous, nanny-chasing husband (Paul Giamatti) - the movie is woefully unsuccessful even at treading that fine line between cleverness and cuteness that can make or break a film of this type.
But that air of fanciful creativity is quickly squelched in favor of formulaic storytelling and cookie cutter characterizations.Interestingly, the filmmakers, for all their championing of the women employed as nannies, seem to have almost as low an opinion of the profession itself as do the elite snobs who appear on screen.All told, Johansson is really the only decent thing about "The Nanny Diaries" (well, little Nicholas Art is pretty cool too), but even her staunchest admirers would be well advised to look the other way when it comes to this film..
Scarlett Johansson plays a college graduate who after finishing his years of studying, and not having luck to find a job in the field she desired ends up working as a nanny to the spoiled and annoying kid (Nicholas Art) of a rich but heartless family, a couple played by Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti.
To make things a little lighter to the nanny she has the company of a great and wise friend (Alicia Keys) and the Harvard Hottie Hayden (Chris Evans, who is amazing playing a Prince Charming kind of guy) a neighbor of the X family as she calls them during the movie.I have not read the book in which this film was based, and I'm not sure if I want it to, so this review won't be focused in telling if the film is faithful to the written work.
Once again, a film said to us that rich people are heartless and mean persons who throw their kids to the nanny, instead of taking care of them because they need to make more money, go to shopping all day long, because in that way everybody gets happy.
Well, I can't say more about Antropology and the way of societies conducing things but as for the money not making things easier I'll say this: The money makes things easier but you've gotta throw your heart and emotions in the garbage, just like the parents in this film and as many influential rich people around the world playing with other people's emotions believing that they're always sad and unhappy when actually they're not or they shouldn't be.The happy ending worked but not that much, it come too late to get my attention.
This comments might seem cruel or angrier but I can't help having watched as previous film a shocking reality presented in "Ken Park" where less fortunate teenagers have awkward life experiences and most of the time their parents are there and even worse they are part of traumatic moments of their kids lives and that movie didn't make me get out of the chair despite its crude, its twisted and its bizarre moments while this other nanny film made me think on other things that has noting to do with it.
I know "Ken Park" is not a ordinary film that everybody can watch just like "The Nanny Diaries" but at least it said something more to me and my life than this poor work; I felt sorry for the kids in "Ken Park" but for the little boy in "The Nanny Diaries" I just couldn't care at all.
Scarlett plays an endearing college grad named Annie who gets a large helping of reality when she becomes a nanny to a young boy named Grayer.
The film stars Scarlett Johansson as Annie Braddock (Why are female movie characters always named Annie, not Ann?
The film stars Scarlett Johansson as Annie Braddock (Why are female movie characters always named Annie, not Ann?
I've never known an Ann in my life who likes to be called Annie), a recent college graduate who stumbles into a job as a Nanny for the child of an unhappy, upwardly mobile couple residing on Manhattan's lower east side.
I've never known an Ann in my life who likes to be called Annie), a recent college graduate who stumbles into a job as a Nanny for the child of an unhappy, upwardly mobile couple residing on Manhattan's lower east side.
I think the poor reviews for The Nanny Diaries can be attributed to expectations- I do agree that the book has a much different tone from the movie.
I think what makes this movie work are the really strong performances by Laura Linney and Donna Murphy, the funny jokes, and the overall serious tone..
While it also gave the actor a payday, his part in the story only robbed more time from the relationship between the two best friends, Scarlett and Alicia.The movie goer only needs to focus on the most principal characters in the story otherwise it detracts when the viewer is trying to identify with a character who is on screen for only 10 second scenes and trying to guess how they fit into the rest of the story.But, overall, the story was unique in its concept and takes its place as "yet another of the pretentious New York stories" where the residents think that the world rises and sets on their beloved city.
Scarlett Johansson doesn't rip my heart out with emotion in this film like she did in 'A Love Song for Bobby Long', or 'Girl with a Pearl Earring', but it's not that kind of movie.
The writers have compiled believable characters from actual experience as New York City Nannies, and formulated them and themselves into an interesting and amusing drama.This may not be the Funniest Comedy or the most Emotional Drama that I have seen of Scarlett Johansson, but it was entertaining while intellectually stimulating.
Laura Linney as Mrs. X the employer was brilliant and I also loved Alicia Keyes as the best friend and Donna Murphy as Annies Mom. All-in-all a good movie for when you want to be entertained but don't want to have to think too much..
In Singapore, this phenomenon continues to grow, and in New York, it becomes a fictional social study, where you have a best selling novel turned into a movie (what else?).In many ways, The Nanny Diaries is similar to The Devil Wears Prada.
Unlike the book, which leaves things pretty unresolved, maybe that gives it a touch or realism, this film gives us the perfect happy ending, were the bad guys are reformed and our heroine has found what she was looking for.I didn't hate the movie, it's fine, it just drags a little.
It was sharp and gossipy, amusing in a clear-eyed, first-hand-knowledge sort of way (both authors worked as nannies in NYC before writing the book).None of that makes it to the film, which changes the plot & characters so completely that it might as well be a different story with an entirely different title.
She is also appalled to learn of Annie's waste-of-time job raising a child.So, what I gathered from the movie is that it is only OK to leave your child for hours on end if you are a nurse from New Jersey who is trying to give your child an opportunity to one day work his/her way up to a life of luxury (which will, in turn, presumably make said child evil and heartless).
This the movie makers have not achieved.The Upper East End parents are so stereotyped that the movie makers don't even bother giving them names, but just call them Mr and Mrs X (Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney).
What kind of life the little kid goes through needs no elaboration and his transformation from a hostile brat to a longing and loving child in his relationship with the new nanny (Johansson, of course) is predictability itself.And I don't agree with what some critic say that this movie is comparable to The devil wears Prada, just because both have a dominating middle-aged woman and an unsophisticated lassie.
Annie (changed from Nanny in the book since movie audiences are stupider than book readers) is played by Scarlet Johansson whose career is starting to show cracks, especially when she has the unenviable task of acting next to Paul Giamatti(as Mr. X) thus exposing her talent as the fraud that it is.
The Nanny Diaries (2007): Dir: Shari Springer Berman / Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, Paul Giamatti, Chris Evans, Alicia Keys: Recycled story about progression and accomplishment.
Scarlett Johansson teams up with her Avengers Assemble co star Chris Evans in this underrated drama about a college graduate named Annie(Johanson)who has to mind a little boy who's parents go by Mrs & Mr X(played by Paul Giamatti from The Amazing Spiderman 2 and Laura Linney)who are sorta uptight and Annie finds it hard to keep up with Mrs X's terms,while Mrs' X's husband is cheating on her with a much more younger woman.
Also starring Tangled star Donna Murphy as Scarlett Johansson's mother, and Alicia Keys as Annie's friend,its not a bad film but its not that great either.The story has been done to death before,parts of it reminded me of Raising Helen meets The Devil Wears Prada but having said that if you like the actors in this film than check it out.C- 5/10The ending was sorta off for me but the rest of the film is OK..
After blowing an interview for a high-corp business, Annie finds herself being offered the role of a nanny for Mrs. X (played by Laura Linney).
Scarlett Johansson playing Annie Braddock makes the film worth seeing.Annie takes a job as a nanny and she struggles with the miserable life her employers bestow upon her.