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Nanny Diaries, The
EMAILPRINTThe Weinstein Company

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 34 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 15 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama | Romance
Written by:
Nicola Kraus (novel)
Emma McLaughlin (novel)
Robert Pulcini
Shari Springer Berman
Directed by:
Robert Pulcini
Shari Springer Berman
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 24, 2007
DVD: December 4, 2007
Running Time: 106 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for language
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, Paul Giamatti, Alicia Keys, Cady Huffman, Nicholas Art, Donna Murphy, and Chris Evans
The Nanny Diaries tells the story of the emotional and often humorous journey of Annie Braddock, a young woman from a working-class neighborhood in New Jersey, as she struggles to understand her place in the world. Fresh out of college, she gets tremendous pressure from her nurse mother to find a respectable position in the business world, although Annie would prefer to trade in her BlackBerry for an anthropologist's field diary. Through a serendipitous meeting, Annie ends up in the elite and ritualistic culture of Manhattan's Upper East Side--as remote from Annie's suburban New Jersey upbringing as life in an Amazon tribal village. Choosing to duck out of real life, Annie accepts the position as a nanny for a wealthy family, referred to as simply "the X's." She quickly learns that life is not very rosy on the other side of the tax bracket, as she must cater to the every whim of Mrs. X and her precocious son Grayer, while attempting to avoid the formidable Mr. X. Life becomes even more complicated when Annie falls for a gorgeous neighbor of the X's who she nicknames Harvard Hottie, and is finally forced to explore what she wants to do with her life. (The Weinstein Company)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: American Splendor
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
TV Guide Ken Fox
Berman and Pulcini, who turned Harvey Pekar's graphic memoir into the visually inventive, Oscar-nominated "American Splendor," dress this film as an anthropological field diary and add several fabulous touches.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
A late-summer delight, a sleek, handsomely made bauble buoyed by a cast much stronger than the flimsy material deserves.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
The film belongs to Linney, whose caustic putdowns and status-seeking veneer barely hides her genuine hurt over her husband's philandering and her distant relationship to her own child. No doubt her diaries would be more compelling than the nanny's.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
Something of an odd-duck movie. It is not a broad comedy or a wildly romantic one, either. Nor is it Edith Wharton lite. But it does partake of all those modes in intelligently observant ways.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Meghan Peters
Although Johansson has a knack for nailing most roles, the angry yet fun-loving nanny doesn't quite work for her.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The movie itself is sort of bland and obvious and comfortable.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Johansson, hair dyed brown to make her seem less glamorous, spices up this bland role.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Weak dramatically, and that limits its overall effectiveness.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
There's a good movie buried inside The Nanny Diaries, and a good cast trying hard to dig it out. Too bad they don't get much help.
Read Full Review >Empire Staff (Not credited)
Johansson is no Anne Hathaway in this pleasant but forgettable comedy.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
An adamantly unterrible picture, a reasonably enjoyable diversion.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Despite some clever early fantasy scenes, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini's adaptation of best seller The Nanny Diaries won't make Bridget Jones give up her writing.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Satire should be knife-sharp and whip-smart, and The Nanny Diaries never is.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
They should've thrown everything away except the title and the outline. That's what the "Devil Wears Prada" creative team did, and that film turned out a lot richer than this one.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Awash in spurious sentimentality and sniping.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Linney -- this has happened too much to her -- is once again the best thing in a movie that at most achieves a certain mediocrity.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
Because The Nanny Diaries is essentially a two-character story whose supporting players are wooden props, it would help if the actors playing the two were evenly matched. But Ms. Johansson’s Annie, who narrates the movie in a glum, plodding voice, is a leaden screen presence, devoid of charm and humor.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
The comedy has several inspired moments and a genuine flair for the satiric, but overall the film leaves you cold.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Scott Foundas
Like the book, the Nanny Diaries movie never finds a dramatic center.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
Watching the movie is a nonexperience--like the Upper East Side apartment where most of the action takes place, it's lavishly appointed but joyless.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
The social bite of the popular novel fades into a generic chick flick.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
The very rich are different from you and me. And much worse. That's basically the message of the disappointingly banal Nanny Diaries, a film that is even more lightweight and clichéd than the fluff that was the best-selling book.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Reading this book and watching this movie, as with "The Devil Wears Prada" a year earlier, I'm convinced that chick-lit books are formula - and chick-lit movies are baby formula.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
The movie's banal fantasies badly chafe any anthropological consideration of what a girl should do with her career. This isn't life. It's Lifetime.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
The characters are instantly reversible--the bratty kid turns out to be a sweetie pie, the mother just needs to be told off. Only Giamatti, as the cliched businessman husband, is irredeemable.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
For a light comedy, The Nanny Diaries turns out to have an off-putting theme. It glorifies the romance of slumming.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
As you watch the nannies mistreated and the children left to cry themselves to sleep, the only surprise is that there are no surprises. It’s zombie-land.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
The material has been turned into a trivially narcissistic product for teen-age girls who want to feel indignant about wrongs they are unlikely to suffer.
Read Full Review >Premiere Deborah Day
The supporting players do a serviceable job in their roles, but no amount of Oscar-nominee nuance from Giamatti or Linney can salvage what amounts to a candy-striped trifle for post-collegiate slacker existentialists.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufman
So tightly constructed of clichés, stereotypes and chick-lit tropes that it's inert; no fresh air can blow in.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
An awful lot of good talent has been squandered in this by-the-numbers film.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
There's something painful about watching Scarlett Johansson, who looks as if she never had an indecisive moment in her life, struggle to seem ineffectual.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 15 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Roshan K. gave it a1:
Extremely boring and tedious with cliche characters.
Erica gave it a9:
There were certainly some things that could be improved, but for the most I found this movie to be very pleasant. It was funny, well acted and charming. Even my boyfriend (whose favourite movie is 300) liked it, and he is hard to please.
Chad S. gave it a5:
When Mrs. X(Laura Linney) finally reveals her sensitive side(like Miranda Preistly(Meryl Streep) in "The Devil Wears Prada"), her vulnerability beneath the mask of apathetic nonchalance, we're not buying it. She's more believable as an unrepentant bitch. Her epiphany doesn't come about organically. It's too formulaic, and downright idiotic. Didn't she screen the damn tape? Thanks to some convoluted writing, Scarlett Johannsen gets to make an obvious speech about bad parenting. Linney gets to cry. Even when "The Nanny Diaries" is a passable entertainment about self-centered rich people, the film is watered down by Annie's romance with Dean(John Henry Cox). She feels bad for Grayer(Nicholas Art), but apparently, not that bad. She gets some.
[Anonymous] gave it an8:
Great underlaying message - was surprisingly uncliched (?) Thoroughly enjoyable.
G-Rad Andrew gave it a5:
Not much of a guy movie, but it was an all right family film that's for sure.
G.M D.K gave it an8:
Ultimately entertaining and charming all together.
K. B. gave it a0:
It was the worst movie I have attempted to see in a really long time. I say attempted, because I didn't make it to the end. We managed a good 40 minutes into it -- which is about 30 minutes longer than my companions wanted to stay. Cheesy, cheesy, horrible writing. And just not funny or even cute.
