The Nanny Diaries: C+

The style of writing-directing team Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini seems to adapt to the literary properties they re-work to the screen like a mirror: reflecting that work's strengths - usually in the form of a clever visual aesthetic - and occasionally, also the work's weaknesses. In American Splendor, the rough-cut and enjoyable interpretation of Harvey Pekar's work, the pair turned his ordinary-is-extraordinary philosophy into an extended visual gimmick that worked, due mostly to its long-lasting cleverness. But more than that they took his squalid, earthy aura to heart and produced a movie that, while not great, triumphed and payed tribute with dexterity. In The Nanny Diaries the most obvious thing Berman and Pulcini have taken from Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus' novel is this: that Upper East Side mommies and daddies are bad; the comedic satire contained therein seems almost an after thought - or so the filmmakers apparently thought. Because though watching Scarlett Johansson traips about the city with a small child for 105 minutes certainly seems ripe for the plucking, the script fumbles and the direction falls flat. So much for dodging that sophmore slump in this, their second film.

It isn't all bad though. Laura Linney, hiking about in monstrous heels as Mrs. X, gives a lush performance: vivid, viciously funny with just a roll of the eye, and unnecesarily sympathetic. Because sympathy is quite the last thing needed in the cinematic Manhattan landscape envisioned in this translation - a place where red umbrellas fall from skies and digital recordings meld with the real world. Also too there seem a large supply of wackos and caricatures, something only mildly notable in the book. As it is, the carnival world our heroine - voluntarily hired on a lark as a nanny for a summer of "field observation" (she wants to be an anthropologist with a degree in business, heh) - finds herself in seems all together alittle too synthetic, absurd. Sure one could claim so too was the book, and they would be (mostly) right but Diaries slices out just what could have saved it: atmosphere; while in turn saving just what it needed least: Hollywood.

Let us look at the timeline of the plot, both in the book and film, hmm? In the book, stressed out Nanny (as everyone refers to her, even as she refers to herself) takes the child-rearing gig as part of a job program she's set up for herself to get through college. While engaged as such, she gets lost in a mad-cap world of subtle Sex and the City style soiries, scandals, and sobs late at night with a bottle of wine. But however does she make it through? With a veritable army of acquaintances both work-related and personal (gotta love her grandma and best friend). Oh and she bags a guy; he's sort of flat, a little too earnest, but he's more real than she probably see's all day. And before we forget: Nanny playing "nanny" ends badly. All in all, not a bad little misadventure and pretty funny at times.

Not so much in the movie. In The Nanny Diaries, Superstar A schlubs it as a totally well-intentioned, empowered woman in a world of world-weary "empowered" women as she tries to weave her way through the minefield that is a rather limp imagining; sadly, she doesn't give it much effort (though kudos for having a husky voice), though who could blame her? Her friends have all deserted her - save Lynette (Alicia Keyes); her boyfriend (Chris Evans) now drags heavily on her person with his bright eyes and so waaay too earnest persona; and her grandma - so lovable and caring on the page? Dead, replaced with lined-face "Ma" (Donna Murphy). All in all, I'd have to say taking this chick in this world - now turned gratingly 2-D amidst such obvious targets - over spunky, sensible Nanny would have to be crazy.

It isn't that I demand alot from a chick-flick adapted from chick-lit; I expect a solid translation, a chuckle, and to leave smiling; though I will admit that having heard our venerable, aformentioned Berman and Pulcini would be helming, I came also expecting some sparkle, something nifty. And yeah, I got most of that at times; Johansson has the working-woman-in-the-movies frazzle down, the source material keeps it's outline, and Linney stacks up well with her biggest competetion in recent Diva history, Meryl Streep. And who couldn't help but smiling at the film's end (especially knowing what could have happened)? But what, ultimatel, our we left with as an audience? The answer, in perspective, doesn't really live up to expectations; because for all of the narrative possibilities in the book, we get the easiest one, the cheapest. For all of the chances presented at satire, we are shown the most obvious, the broadest. And for all of subtlety available pre-translation (which wasn't a whole lot, but still) we hear nothing but speechifying. One would have expected more from a bag of acting/directing/writing talent that have proven to be gifted with spark but, yet again, what do we get? Not much folks, not much.