MYST Post #4: The Nanny Diaries

Over the weekend I sat down to watch a movie. I wasn't looking for anything in particular. I browsed through the popular movies on Amazon and found The Nanny Diaries starring Scarlett Johansson. This film is about a college graduate, Annie (Johansson), who has a degree in business and anthropology. She doesn't have a lot of luck finding a job, and one day she meets a New York mom from the upper east side looking for a nanny, and that is where her adventure begins.

To start, the acting in this film was pretty good. Going into it, I thought that it could either be good or really bad, but it did not disappoint. I was not too familiar with her work before; I had seen her in Lucy and although I didn't particularly like that film, she gave a good performance for the role. Another familiar face for me in this film, was the New York mom, Mrs. X, played by Laura Linney. For her, I had previously seen her in the British film Love Actually. In this movie, she played her role very well. Since her character is a very privileged woman from the upper east side, her role included being very stuck up and arrogant, and she brought that to the part very well. Randomly, Alicia Keyes was also in this film as Annie's friend. Her part was rather small, but she did do an acceptable job. I didn't know she ever acted in any films so I was surprised with that.

One of the recurring themes that was addressed in this movie was money and happiness. There are two or three occasions when Johansson's character mentions it, whether it be to her friends or mom. It is shown the most through Mrs. X and her husband. They have a lot of money and live a very wealthy life; they have vacation house in the Hamptons, Mrs. X goes shopping all the time at the most expensive stores, they have a great apartment in a prestigious neighborhood, they have maid, a butler, and a nanny, but their marriage is not good or stable, given that Mr.X is cheating on his wife. Through all they say and do, it is clear they are not happy, and that addresses the idea that money can't buy happiness.

There are a few interesting things added into this movie that I was not expecting. I thought that it would be a very plain movie in that there wouldn't be any special camera angles, etc. Yet, when I least expecting it there were. In one scene, Annie takes the little boy out to go to a museum. They are walking up the stairs coming out of the subway with the camera focused on them. As they walk up the stairs, the camera follows them as they walk behind it, so when they are on the other side the camera is upside down.

In another scene (spoiler alert), Annie gets fired while they are vacationing at their house in the Hamptons. As she is riding away in the car, the little boy that she took care of and whom she developed a close bond with started running behind the car yelling for her. The camera shows her in the car for about 3 seconds then flips to the boy running for only about 1 seconds. This progresses for a few shots before it finally stops with the little boy stopping and falling to the ground, crying as the car leaves his view.

On other interesting thing is how Mr. X is introduced, The first two times he is shown in this film, his face is hidden. For example, the first time Annie sees him, he walks into the apartment and picks up his son. As Annie is watching the interaction, she is trying to see is face, but his son is blocking his view. I thought this was how it would be for the rest of the movie, that his face would never be shown. However, this did not happen, and I thought it was interesting how that changed.

One thing that I liked about this film was the ending. While part of it was somewhat predictable, there was one thing I was surprised about. Once Annie gets fired, I thought they Mrs. X would realize how silly it was, and they would repair the relationship, and Annie would get her job back, but it was not that way. Instead, Annie moved on with her life.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie, It had a lot more surprises than I thought it would. For the rating, I would give it a 4 out of 5 stars.