Comparing movies to their literary counterparts is never an easy proposition. There are always things a lover of the source material is going to adore, some intrinsic quality that they worship which, nine times out of ten, somehow doesn’t make the transition from page to screen. But film is a tricky medium and what worked in paragraph form doesn’t necessarily come to life in a screenplay, deft filmmakers from David Lean to Stanley Kubrick to Martin Scorsese to Alfonso Cuarón having to make tough choices sure to displease someone when trying to bring one of their adaptations to life. 

Scarlett Johansson and Nicholas Reese Art learn to get along in The Weinstein Company's The Nanny Diaries

But from Lawrence of Arabia to The Shining, from Age of Innocence to Children of Men, the heart of the material, the core elements which made the novel work so splendidly for so many people, remained intact. They didn’t mess with themes integral to telling the tale, and while some of the paths might have changed and some of the various subplots may have been weeded out the soul of the story was still there for lovers of the written word these pictures started with to happily drink in.

It is here where the writing and directing team of Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini falter with The Nanny Diaries. Their adaptation of Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus’ best-selling novel gets off on the wrong foot right from the start, making wholesale changes damaging the story’s satire and diluting its potent comedic punch even before it has the chance to get up and running. Somehow they’ve gotten it all wrong, and considering just how brilliant and self-assured the couple’s last outing American Splendor was their failure here is beyond disappointing.

And yet, there is still so much innate charm and enough buoyant comedic energy I was almost willing to give the film a pass. I found the recently much-maligned Scarlett Johansson to be perfectly delightful in this, while the always fabulous Laura Linney is just grand as the wealthy ice queen driving her costar around the bend. I was also quite taken with the anthropological look of the film, Berman and Pulcini examining the world of New York’s elite with a bemusedly clinical detachment that’s practically sublime.

Like I said, by the time things were close to finishing I was more than willing to give this take on The Nanny Diaries a gently smiling vote of amused confidence. But then came the last ten minutes, and the bottom falling out of the picture with a deadening thud that almost shook the theater I was sitting in to pieces. It does this with such sudden swiftness I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. In one fell swoop the filmmakers destroyed, not only my interest, but they also tortured and obliterated the core of the brilliantly wicked satire at the heart of McLaughlin and Kraus’ novel. The soul of the piece was shattered, and no matter how much I liked certain bits nothing could change what had depressingly just occurred.

For those who need to know, the story follows recent college grad Annie (Johansson) as she is hired by an Upper East Side New York socialite, who she refers to only as Mrs. X (Linney), to be her son Grayer’s (Nicholas Art) nanny. Suddenly her world becomes consumed by the maudlin and maddening details of the X’s family life (or lack thereof), realizing she is slowly becoming far more of a parent to the couple’s son his real ones doing whatever they can to mask the fact their child is even around (let alone actually exists).

Who knows if I am right or not, but I got the feeling that notoriously hands-on producer Harvey Weinstein meddled with this film probably more then anyone associated with it would ever honestly admit. Too many scenes feel too obvious, too dumbed-down for mass consumption, the climax so cliché and unoriginal it is like it was thought up by a focus group and not by a pair of gifted filmmakers who bucked convention so blissfully back in their first narrative enterprise American Splendor. 

If I’m right, I can only wonder about The Nanny Diaries that might have been. If I am wrong, then this second film for the duo isn’t so much a sophomore slump as a cataclysmic tragedy. More then likely it is instead a thing falling somewhere near the middle, and if that is the case we’ll never know why the choices were made to show Mr. X’s face or to give our heroine Nanny a needless name. Thankfully we still have the book, the best advice I have being to forgo this cinematic babysitter and curl up on the couch and lose yourself inside the novel’s melodious prose for a first, second or twenty-second marvelously elating time.

Film Rating:  êê  (out of 4)

Additional Links

-  The Nanny Diaries Theatrical Trailer