RICH people are the scum of the earth. They're spoiled, selfish and phoney, but money can't buy them love. Just in case you didn't know that already, the makers of The Nanny Diarieslay the message on with a trowel. The rich are epitomised by a New York couple known only as Mr and Mrs X, living in luxury - and a loveless marriage - in a lavish upper-east-side apartment.
Mrs X (Laura Linney) is an insincere socialite who spends her days air-kissing, shopping and overseeing the catering of charity events. Mr X (Paul Giamatti) is a cold Wall Street workaholic having an affair with a colleague. They harbour ambitions for their five-year-old son (Nicholas Reese Art), who appears to have inherited their worst characteristics. In the most misfortunate naming of a child since Johnny Cash sang about a boy named Sue, he is called Grayer.
A chance encounter in Central Park leads college graduate Annie Braddock into the Xs' horrible world. She's from the wrong side of the tracks (New Jersey), and even though Scarlett Johansson plays the role, the film does its damnedest to make her look plain, dressed down in drab outfits and even wearing glasses at times.
Annie becomes nanny to Grayer, who greets her with a kick and by sticking out his tongue. It's only a matter of time, of course, before Annie realises that the boy is lonely and unloved, treated by his parents as another accessory to go along with Mrs X's jewellery collection and her wall-high shelves of designer shoes.
The sole sympathetic wealthy character in the movie is the cute young Harvard graduate (Chris Evans) who lives in the same apartment building. Even though all his friends are totally obnoxious, he is undeterred by Annie's lowly social status and perceives her inner beauty.
The movie plays like a lite variation on the much sharper and funnier The Devil Wears Prada. Once again, all the best lines go to the bitchy employer. The redoubtable Linney depicts Mrs X as a woman so uptight that her neck muscles are permanently tensed. Perpetually in denial, she vainly protests, "I don't want to be a control freak."
The scenario is so formulaic that we soon anticipate that it all will end in tears, moralising and a soppy sentimental resolution, as it does. One would have expected a harder-edged treatment from the husband-and-wife team of Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman after their adventurous American Splendor. MICHAEL DWYER
