By Grant Tilbury
28/09/2007
Certificate: 12A
Running Time: 106 minutes
A young working class New Jersey girl Annie Braddock (Scarlett Johansson) is fresh out of college with all the worldly expectations of her proud and almost pushy mother - a nurse - who has slaved to the grind to provide for her daughter to pursue a better life path in the world of business.
Annie decides she needs to find herself and does so in a chance meeting in Central Park where she finds herself being forced into an offer to become a nanny to a boy named Grayer (Nicholas Reese Art) on Manhattan's notoriously elite Upper East Side where she finds herself mixed up in its ritualistic culture.
The story is incredibly well written and gives a good depiction of the life as a nanny must be like on the UES of New York, the film is based on the 2002 novel of the same name written by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus a pair who had spent a combined eight years working as nannies to over thirty families.
Whilst depicting a life as nanny on the UES the film keeps a often flaky but sincere love interest as Annie meets ‘Harvard hottie’ Hayden (Chris Evans) who lives in the same block as Mrs. X (Laura Linney) Annie’s employer. Hayden is pushy to convince Annie to give him a try but she is reluctant in fear of breaking her contract with her employer as Mrs. X has told her strictly no men. There is an interesting parallel between Hayden and Annie both from separate social classes but who have lead equally as difficult lives.
The movie is well written, flows nicely and is quirky with comical moments. The soundtrack embraces worldly sounds provided by composer Mark Suozza who wanted to show the journey of the main character (Annie) as an observer in a strange culture. Lily Allen’s song ‘LDN’ made an appearance to a scene highlighting city life, being pedantic and slightly sad I found this an interesting observation and comical because I didn’t see any old lady struggling with bags from Tesco and the song is about London not New York.
Despite that all in all a most enjoyable and insightful film with a blinding performance by Scarlett Johansson.
Rating: 7 out of 10
The Nanny Diaries is released in the UK on October 12th 2007
David Jensen Photography:
https://www.davidjensen.co.uk/
