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West Side. The movie has plenty of fun with these scenes, and it juxtaposes Mrs. X’s constant rules and demands with Annie’s alone time with Grayer. He starts out as a spoiled brat, of course, but once the two warm up to each other, the movie approaches a real sweetness. There’s a great scene in which Grayer – in what the movie tells us is a problem most nannies run into – tells Annie he loves her, and Annie tells him she loves him, too.
After that, the movie oddly shortchanges the amount of time Annie and Grayer spend with each other. (At least he provides a real reason why Annie doesn’t just quit her job and end the movie, which was one of the main problems with Prada.) We instead shift our focus toward the Annie/Harvard Hottie subplot, and more notably, the elusive Mr. X.
Played by the irreplaceable Paul Giamatti, Mr. X is a completely unsympathetic borderline psychotic. A domineering jerk who (it’s hinted at) has a whopper of an inferiority complex, Giamatti’s portrayal is the best part of the movie. I say borderline psychotic, but the brilliance of the performance – aside from being very entertaining – is that you believe, every step of the way, that real men like this exist. His character, the heretofore hidden real villain of the piece, also allows Linney’s Mrs. X to show some vulnerability and eventually evolve into a real person, which adds a dynamic that Prada never had (although that’s the last time I’m comparing the two, I promise).
The acting all around is good; Giamatti gets the most fun role, but Linney is a pro who proves she can play broad Hollywood characters just as well as she nuances her way through all those independent films. Johansson is also a good actress, although here all she really needs to do is look really cute while flustered and wear lots of different outfits (and some costumes), all of which she does quite adequately.
Oh, and proving that it’s an equal-opportunity stereotyper, the movie represents Annie’s friends as consisting of a Greenwich Village-dwelling Hip Black Girl (Alicia Keys) and Her Gay Friend (Nate Corddry). The final major character, Annie’s mother, fares better; played by Donna Murphy, she disapproves of Annie’s current job but also wants her to become something more practical than an anthropologist.
It’s a shallow Hollywood movie, but it ends up being a pretty good one, supported by an energetic if cheesy script and elevated by good performances. I assume it will be well-liked by most girls, and isn’t the worst thing a guy could see on a date (I assume that would be Bratz, but just to be safe, guys, lure her over to Jason Bourne instead.) In the pantheon of chick-lit adaptations, it’s probably just about as good as Prada. Oops.
Movie Grade: B-
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