Product Details

• Actors: Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, Paul Giamatti, Donna Murphy, John Henry Cox
• Directors: Robert Pulcini, Shari Springer Berman
• Writers: Robert Pulcini, Shari Springer Berman, Emma McLaughlin, Nicola Kraus
• Producers: Bob Weinstein, Dany Wolf
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Weinstein Company
• DVD Release Date: December 4, 2007
• Run Time: 105 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000VKL6T8
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #58,012 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Nanny Diaries (Widescreen Edition)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Annie is a young girl from a working-class neighborhood who suddenly finds herself working as a nanny for wealthy family in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Between catering to the every whim of her employers and their precocious son and falling in love with their gorgeous neighbor, Annie tries to figure out what she wants to do with her life.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not half as good as it wants you to think it is, September 10, 2007

By 

Terry Mesnard (Bellevue, NE) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Nanny Diaries (Full Screen Edition) (DVD)

The Nanny Diaries fits into the same category as The Devil Wears Prada. Both feature women who take a plunge into a society that's not prepared for them and, more importantly, they aren't prepared for. In the Devil Wears Prada, the target is fashion. Here, the target is more broad: upper class Manhattanites with no time for their families.

The movie owes even more to The Devil Wears Prada (including a brief snippet that features the main character reading the novel in a wink-wink, nudge-nudge homage) and contains, unfortunately, none of the spark and cutting edge that the former had. Here we have the always beautiful Scarlett Johansson as an Anthropology student named Annie who is uncertain about her future and what she wants to be in the real world. Instead of facing the future, she stumbles upon Mrs. X (played with icy chill by Laura Linney) who mistakes her name Annie as "nanny" and immediately the park seems crowded with Manhattanites who want her services.

Long story short, she gets the job and, like a certain fashionista, discovers she bit off more than she can chew. Along the route, she meets the "Harvard Hottie" (Chris Evans) and the lecherous and incredibly creepy Mr. X (played by Paul Giamatti in a role very unlike his others) and learns about love, life and the importance of "following your dreams"(tm).

While the story is humorous in parts and I really enjoyed the framing as an anthropology experiment where it's Annie looking from the outside in and learning about this absolutely foreign culture, it suffers from pacing problems. The beginning was amusing and fun and so was the ending. How they got there, though, was not worth the time. Director Shari Springer Berman worked magic in her adaptation of American Splendor (also featuring Paul Giamatti), but none of that spark is found here.

I will say it has a great cast. Paul Giamatti is terrific as is Laura Linney, who I've always enjoyed. Even Chris Evans who has come a long way from his roots in Not Another Teen Movie is enjoyable. This strong cast led by the always pretty Scarlett Johansson really helps the movie and carry the film. Unfortunately, their parts don't truly resonate the way they should. I think this is what separates this movie from The Devil Wears Prada. Whereas the characters in Prada felt real and carried a spark, here they merely feel like caricatures.

There's some really cute and good scenes, but overall it's too little too late, especially when faced with the tremendously better The Devil Wears Prada of last year. I'd recommend waiting for a renter.

Cute, for what it is.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Superficial Life Lessons Eked Out of a Trivial Urban Fairy Tale, January 5, 2008

By 

Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (2008 HOLIDAY TEAM)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Nanny Diaries (Widescreen Edition) (DVD)

It's disheartening to see such a sparkling cast put through the motions of a tiresome mainstream trifle like this 2007 adaptation of the lightweight bestseller of the same name by one-time nannies Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. Directed and written by the husband-wife team of Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (who previously partnered on the smart and quirky American Splendor about underground comic book writer Harvey Pekar), this movie would seem ripe for a sharp satire about the privileged class on the Upper East Side. However, the trite life-lessons orientation of this modern-day fairy tale escapes their idiosyncratic grasp, and the result is a superficial slog with a particularly narcissistic perspective.

The story centers on New Jersey-bred Annie Braddock, freshly graduated with honors from NYU, who realizes during a corporate interview that she doesn't know what she wants to do with her life. As an anthropology major, she sees life as a series of Museum of Natural History dioramas (a particularly contrived device used repeatedly in the film). By happenstance in Central Park, she is recruited to become a nanny for the unfortunately named Grayer, the towheaded son of a glamorous, designer-clothed society matron referred to as Mrs. X. The trappings are luxurious at Mrs. X's apartment, but things go sour almost immediately when Mrs. X's demands on Annie become excessive. It turns out that the Mrs. X is in a bad marriage which has left the Mrs. desperate for her workaholic husband's attentions while ignoring her son. As this personal drama unfolds, Grayer becomes attached to Annie, and she responds in kind, which of course, can only lead to complications.

As much as I like Scarlett Johansson, she is not a natural at this type of character-driven comedy (unless you count the skits she does on Saturday Night Live where she plays Lexie, the glammed-up Jersey girl pointing repeatedly to chandeliers and marble columns). She just isn't that credible as a dowdy, naïve post-graduate perhaps because she has already been seen in past films as a savvy and often world-weary bombshell. Her physical antics here seem especially strained and her tirades rather forced. It's not a bad performance as much as it is a misuse of her talent. Faring somewhat better is the always reliable Laura Linney, who gets to look gorgeous for a change and then uncover a wickedly vituperative woman rattled by her deep-seeded insecurity. The relationship between the two characters will likely remind you of The Devil Wears Prada, a much better adaptation of a lightweight roman-a-clef, although Mrs. X is not as complex or intimidating a character as fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly.

Relegated to the sidelines is Paul Giamatti properly villainous as Mr. X, an adulterous, insensitive lout of a husband and father. Chris Evans colorlessly plays Harvard Hottie, Annie's preppy, kind-hearted suitor upstairs, while Nicholas Art simply doesn't register any real warmth as Grayer. Broadway great Donna Murphy shows up effectively as Annie's working-nurse mother, Julie White has a few funny moments as an unctuous training seminar leader, and pop singer Alicia Keys plays the requisite best pal role with bohemian spunk. The story's resolution feels particularly pat. The 2007 DVD has a few extras - no commentary track but a standard making-of featurette about 17 minutes long. The second short, "Confessions from the Original Nannies: The Authors of the Bestselling Book", is marginally more interesting as the book's co-authors Kraus and McLaughlin discuss their own experiences as nannies and the book-to-movie transformation. Lastly, there is an amazingly dull blooper reel plus the original theatrical trailer.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nanny and the City, September 22, 2007

By 

mikey mike - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Nanny Diaries (Full Screen Edition) (DVD)

-I knew absolutely nothing about this movie going in. Didn't know who was in it or what it was going to be about. To my surprise I enjoyed the well made movie very much. It had great acting, a solid story, and whiles not being original had it's own unique charms that makes it a very enjoyable movie.

-The movie tells the story of Annie who is a recent graduate plucked into a world she wasn't expecting. She plans to be a financial consultant or something like that but ends being a nanny by chance. The rest of the movie follows her on her adventure as she learns what it takes to be a nanny in NY, and also learns what it takes to survive life.

-The film-making technique is not necessarily an original one in which the main character narrates the whole story but what helps in this one is that it's quite an entertaining narration and she doesn't narrate the whole movie so it does help. The odd visual style is also nicely done with some unique effects and one really weird scene in which we see Annie flying through New York all Mary Poppins style.

-Scarlett Johansson is building quite an impressive resume with this brilliant movie. Last year she was great in "The Prestige" and now this year she knocks it out of the park in this. I unlike 99.7% of men don't find her hot nor do I fantasize about her, but she is a very good actress and I hope she gets more roles that showcases her acting assets like this one did. She plays her character with a sweet down to earth nature that really makes you root for her all the way. I didn't think at the start of this year that one of my favorite movie characters would be a nanny but alas that is the case here. Singer turned actress Alicia Keys plays the best friend Lynette. She's not featured an awful lot in the movie, but the small doses of her are well acted.

-Laura Linney plays the cold and kinda misunderstood Mrs. X. Yeah she seems like shrewd cold hearted woman when we first meet her, but after getting to know her husband Mr. X played the great Paul Giamatti, we begin to understand why she does certain things that she does. Linney has one great scene towards the end of the movie in which she realizes what horrible mother she has been and the way Linney plays that scene is truly stuff of great acting. Instead of going all over emotional, she simply just lets a tear fall down her face and that simple tear just nails everything she's feeling at that moment. Paul Giamatti also does a great job in this as the a**hole husband and whiles not his best performance, he's still dynamite as always.

-At the end of the day I really enjoyed this fun movie. It had comedy, romance, child abuse and life lessons. It may not have great replay value but the first viewing should please everyone that watches it.

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