The film starts with Annie (Scarlett Johansson), our main character, analysing the people of north-east section of New York as family groups in contrast with tribal groups. Sections of a museum are shown and clips of day to day life are turned into dioramas in the museum explained by Annie. The odd thing is that a intrinsic ingredient to these North-East people is that all their families have nannies. She then goes onto tell us the story that leads up to her having an argument with a teddy bear.
Annie has just graduated college and her mother wants her to go into finance but during her first interview Annie realises that she doesn't really know who she is. She can't describe herself in 10 words. She doesn't know what to be so goes about looking at various people in the city and analysing them as specimens in an anthropology museum she finally settles on being nothing more than a woman who feeds birds in the park (this is one of several nods to Mary Poppins in the film). However, whilst in the park she sees a boy about to be knocked down and quickly saves him. When introducing herself to the kids typical North-East district mother (Laura Linney) called Mrs. X for the purposes of the story she is mistaken for saying she is a nanny rather than saying she is Annie. Annie then realises that there maybe something in this nanny business and applies for the job.
Upon getting it she soon realises it is more than what she bargained. Mrs. X is bossy, uptight and very prudish. She treats Annie as a servant and abuses her good nature. Mrs. X and Mr. X (Paul Giomatti) are always too busy for each other never mind their son and Annie and the boy start to build up a loving relationship. She lets the boy live a little whilst his person have always been over concerned with him being overly educated. She takes it upon herself to try and reconcile the parents and also maintain a relationship with the boy next door termed the 'Harvard Hottie' which is not allowed by Mrs. X.
The film was made in 2007, written and directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini who also made the excellent American Splendour.
I did sort of like this film. It had it's niggly problems but it was enjoyable. Scarlett Johansson was very good as Annie. I've seen her in things were she is a really bad actress and in things were she really shines and I think she put up a fair performance here. Annie seemed to have a genuine relationship and affection for the boy and you believed it. I hate Laura Linny, I have always hated her and always will. I don't know exactly why but her voice, the way she looks everything about her annoys me. She was meant to be a really annoying, irritating character in this film so to some extent this really worked in her favour and you really did dislike every aspect of her, but I just don't like her at all. Due to this personal hatred of Laura Linney I enjoyed Paul Giomatti's performance even more. I think he is a brilliant actor and have been a big fan ever since seeing American Splendour. In this film he is so different from his other roles. He is so arrogant and rude towards his wife and dismissive of his son as to be brilliantly hateful whilst Linney was just hatefully hateful.
The story to this film wasn't brilliant, it did seem to lack originality and the ending was just a bit too perfect for me. I enjoyed the directing and the merging reality with Annie's thoughts of everything in terms of anthropology, the way her dreams were included and her narration and referral to characters by pseudonyms for her diary. All this made it appeal to me as a film based on a novel that had not forgotten it's roots but managed to incorporate them. It was a film that did have sad and uplifting scenes and I think it's a credit to the cast and directors that a film can induce such emotions in the audience and whilst not overwhelming this film did make you feel for the characters a bit. The film did seem a bit uneventful though and at times it did seem to drag. Advertised as a comedy it really wasn't all that funny. It had a few funny bits but it was very mild humour. I didn't like Alicia Key's in it as Annie's friend. I just didn't see the point in her and got the impression she was there to pull in her fans. She's not a great actress and we could have done without all the Alicia Keys scenes, they never really added anything to the film.
The film score was generally very good with one horrible intrusion of Lily Allen's LDN but I suppose that's a matter of taste. I hate Lily Allen. But at times the music was tribal keeping with the anthropology and natural history museum theme and at times it was reminiscent of Mary Poppins, on occasions with music like this the score affected the film mood and added to the film but a lot of it was insignificant and unmemorable.
Overall, I would not really recommend you buy this film. It's worth a watch maybe once if you can catch it for free but not a great buy. It sort of seemed slightly similar to Scoop in style and as I had just watched Scoop it did remind me of it a bit. So maybe anyone who enjoyed Scoop could look this up as a lesser follow up.
