'The Nanny Diaries," a scattershot screen adaptation of Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus's 2002 satirical beach read, has one unassailable asset. As this exposé of the rich and miserable on the Upper East Side of Manhattan wobbles along uncertainly, it rests on the tense, squared shoulders of Laura Linney. Defying a screenplay that paints her character, Mrs. X, a Park Avenue matron, as a monstrous control freak, this smart, flexible actress invests her role, a composite of the novel's authors' former employers, with enough humanity to arouse some pity.
The movie (being released worldwide through February), like the book, is narrated by Annie Braddock (Scarlett Johansson), a New Jersey-born anthropology student hired by Mrs. X to be the latest in a stream of nannies for her spoiled child, Grayer (Nicholas Reese Art). In many ways, Mrs. X is as much a slave driver as Miranda Priestly, the fashion editor indelibly played by Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada."
But Linney's high-strung socialite and Streep's chilly fashion empress are markedly different personalities. Mrs. X, for all her pretensions of grandeur, has to answer to her husband (Paul Giamatti), a crude, ugly, foul-mouthed boor who keeps his wife on a tight leash.
Miranda, however, calls the shots of her own life. Where Linney's Park Avenue mother can be heard screaming at her husband behind closed doors, Streep's Miranda never, ever raises her voice.
The screen adaptations of these two chick-lit blockbusters follow the same formulaic path from naiveté through shock to disillusion and ultimate purification. In both stories, the dutiful young acolytes become so caught up by their bosses' horrid compulsions that their very souls are threatened; friends and family go by the wayside.
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The movie (being released worldwide through February), like the book, is narrated by Annie Braddock (Scarlett Johansson), a New Jersey-born anthropology student hired by Mrs. X to be the latest in a stream of nannies for her spoiled child, Grayer (Nicholas Reese Art). In many ways, Mrs. X is as much a slave driver as Miranda Priestly, the fashion editor indelibly played by Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada."
But Linney's high-strung socialite and Streep's chilly fashion empress are markedly different personalities. Mrs. X, for all her pretensions of grandeur, has to answer to her husband (Paul Giamatti), a crude, ugly, foul-mouthed boor who keeps his wife on a tight leash.
Miranda, however, calls the shots of her own life. Where Linney's Park Avenue mother can be heard screaming at her husband behind closed doors, Streep's Miranda never, ever raises her voice.
The screen adaptations of these two chick-lit blockbusters follow the same formulaic path from naiveté through shock to disillusion and ultimate purification. In both stories, the dutiful young acolytes become so caught up by their bosses' horrid compulsions that their very souls are threatened; friends and family go by the wayside.
Discuss Add this link to... Bury
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