Starring 4-time Golden Globe Award nominee, Scarlett Johansson, as the confused fresh graduate out of college with barely an idea of who she really is, The Nanny Diaries seems set to make it big in the cinemas. 

Indeed, what can go wrong? After all, the movie was adapted from the New York Times number 1 bestseller which shares a similar title. It is also directed by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman who brought to moviegoers American Splendor  in 2003 that was honoured with the nomination of the Best Adapted Screenplay in the Academy Awards that very year.

Perhaps it’s the comfort of formulaic filming that drove documentarians Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman to present The Nanny Diaries in the form of a diary.

The film begins with an exploration of femme stereotypes that makes up the socio-DNA of Manhattan and a succinct timeline of the difference between women then and now, fixating on the definition of their roles as mothers in society. Voiced over by Johansson herself, the narration soon explains that the movie will take on the approach of a case study.

With such an intriguing introduction, it is hard not to be drawn within the story. As the plot reveals with much predictability, Johansson is cast as Annie the fresh graduate out of Montclair State University who was mistaken to be a nanny under some bizarre circumstances that largely involves the coincidental rhyming of “Annie” and “nanny”.

She thus begins her first job while keeping her mother in the dark. She moves in with the X-ers and began her stint as a nanny to her young charge, Grayer X. Like the way names have been changed to protect the privacy of test subjects during any research study, X happens to take the place of the family’s actual last name.

In fact, all the characters during the course of Annie’s research had pseudonyms. Take for example, Harvard Hottie (played by Chris Evans ) who chances upon Annie’s (almost) naked posterior and eventually becomes her love interest. Even Annie herself was called Nanny.

That piece of trivial information aside, what had initially started off as a temporary stint so as to allow Annie to find out exactly what she wanted out of life, becomes something more of a permanent nature as she makes a promise to Grayer, sealing her fate as an employee to the X-ers.

It was heartwarming to see how Annie struggles with the choice of staying or quitting. Every time she decides to throw in the towel, she finds that she could not, out of love for her young charge.

Perhaps towards the end of the movie, the movie might have seemed to veer off focus by concentrating the X’s family drama, but in truth, it hadn’t. 

In the course of her work, she had been given the opportunity to peer into the very lives her mother wished for her to lead. She saw how it was all about money and the putting up of appearances and the decision lies within her to assume the life that she ultimately wants to lead.

Though The Nanny Diaries leverages heavily upon the stereotypes portrayed, the ones depicted had at least an ounce of truth in them and added on to the movie’s overall entertainment value.

Scarlett Johansson’s performance was mediocre but the movie’s redeeming grace was really Mrs X (Laura Linney) and Grayer (Nicholas Art). Both delivered their parts believably. Truly a delight to watch!

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Movie Details:

Opens: Sep 27

Running Time: 106 mins

Cast: Donna Murphy, Laura Linney, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans

Director: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini