| Film Review |
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| Written by Gerry Hill | |
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The events in this film are seen through the eyes of the heroine, Annie (the Nanny!) Braddock (Johannson) and the voiceover at the beginning of the film clarifies the fact that she tackles the study of Upper East Side New York with a discerning scientific objectivity: the natives are studied with the same level of enthusiasm as anthropologist Margaret Mead studied the Samoans.
A cute technique, in fact, is to display the dioramas at the Museum –
of ancient cultures and tribal clusters: the final display freezes our
Majestic Madams of Manhattan, in all their luxurious splendour,
sophistication, and psychoses.
Because so many characters are objects of scientific study (and possibly analysis) many of them do not even have personalized names. The antagonist, Mrs X, (Laura Linney) is a fine WASP specimen of the breed: Linney plays the role superbly, with far more subtlety than Merryl Streep in a similar role in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’. Mrs X can switch on the charm with practised sincerity (oxymoron, perhaps!) one moment and then become freezingly cold-blooded the next. Basically, however, she charms to acquire a Caucasian nanny (regarded as the ‘Chanel bag of nannies”, the halo of the nanny hierarchy) then treats her akin to the worst serf during the Dark Ages. The other members of the matriarchal tribe are referred to as Eating Disorder Mom, Paranoid Mom, Shopaholic Mom, Divorcing Mom, Glamour Mom – and others. It is the type which is fodder for satire: the characters can be as paper-thin as the huge range of ‘cardboard’ characters in Charles Dickens’ novels. They are funny on the basis of one quirky characteristic. The nannies are not individualized either. At a Nanny seminar, they are herded into the room to stand in an uneasy group, displaying body language not dissimilar to cows shuffling on their way to electrical shock and the next world. A complete ethnic spectrum is represented: the South American nanny, the Mexican nanny, the Polish nanny and the Jamaican nanny. Annie’s anthropological observations encourage her to divide nannies into 3 types: she is Type C, providing 24/7 to a woman who does nothing. The story line may be considered thin: initially, Annie ricochets from one nanny trauma to another; eventually she is caught in a moral dilemma, that of hating the job but loving her little charge. She ponders about Stockholm Syndrome, a dependence upon the enemy or captor. Mrs X becomes a monster, beset by her own personal problems of an errant spouse who makes enough money to sustain her lifestyle but amuses himself elsewhere. Mrs X dallies with her female cronies, her charitable pursuits, and Nanny seminars, but has no love or happiness in her life. “I prefer him (Grayer, her son) tired when I get home,” she tells Annie abruptly. |
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