September 20, 2007
the nanny diaries
A film of such striking and schematic awfulness (and no, Laura Linney's perf saves nothing — thanks for asking) that to say anything about it would be to betray its vacuity. Nonetheless, we did take a moment to linger over the nanny's deux ex penthousia relationship with the pretty scion upstairs. After the obligatory "we're from different worlds" stumbling blocks, Scion explains to Nanny that they're not so different. At this moment we are entirely primed for him to admit he too is the butler, or adopted, or that the family's broke and he's working four jobs to pay the condo fees. Instead, he soulfully offers that he really he knows of human misery too, because...well, because things aren't so great with his folks. So they're basically on even footing, no problemo!
This is worth noting mostly for its oblique relationship to that genreme found repeatingly in the category of movie we have taken to calling "the audition film" (locus classicus: Flashdance) in which the suffering hero, to overcome her own artistic paralysis, must appropriate the style of another (usually African-American) culture and have that real breakthrough. By what rights does she [usually a she — ed.] commit this crime? While there's no simple answer to the question, it's worth noting that the hero of this genre, almost without fail, has only a single parent . As if the calculations had been made and the math was clear: not quite that a lost parent makes you an honorary member of the immiserated classes, but that it gives you permission to recoup your loss by grabbing up one thing that belongs to those classes. In this case, the nanny.
Posted by jane at September 20, 2007 12:14 PM | TrackBack