Public Servant Lifestyle

Scarlett Johansson plays a live-in nanny on her first job in Manhattan-set romantic comedy, new to DVD.

A comedy about life at the top, as seen from the bottom...Set in Manhattan and starring Scarlett Johansson (Ghost World, Lost in Translation, Match Point, The Island, Scoop), Laura Linney, Alicia Keys, and Chris Evans (The Fantastic Four, The Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer); The Nanny Diaries tells the story of the emotional and often humorous journey of Annie Braddock - played by Johansson - a young woman from a working-class neighborhood in New Jersey, struggling to understand her place in the world.

Upper East Side

Fresh out of college, she gets tremendous pressure from her mother to find a respectable position in the business world although Annie would prefer to trade in her blackbery for an anthropologist's field diary.

A chance meeting and a mistake one day in Central Park leads to Annie being mistaken for a nanny. In a mixture of curiosity and not knowing what to do with her life, she accepts the position. She quickly realizes that the elite and ritualistic culture of Manhattan's Upper East Side she finds herself in is as remote from Annie's suburban New Jersey upbringing as life in an Amazon tribal village. Mrs X, as she is known, is a demanding and spoiled woman, while Mr X is always away at business meetings. Their young son Grayer is a lonely child and eventually he and Annie take to each other.

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 - played by Laura Linney - and her precocious son Grayer, while attempting to avoid the formidable Mr. X...

Life becomes even more complicated when Annie falls for a gorgeous Park Avenue Hottie - played by Chris Evans - and she's forced to re-examine her life and the direction in which it is headed.

Gunnar Rehlin spoke to Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman at this year's 2007 Venice Film Festival:

Q: You are both listed as directors. How does that work? Do you take charge every other day?

A: Robert: - No, but that would be perfect, wouldn´t it? It´s kind of hard to say how we work, every scene is different. But to generalize, I look at the visuals, while Shari takes care of the performances and other things.

Shari: - It used to be tricky with DGA, the director´s guild. They used to not approve of shared director´s credits. Now they have opened up, while before they were very rigid. American Splendor was a non DGA-movie.

Q: How did you become involved in The Nanny Diaries?

A: Shari - We found the whole story appealing. We come from the world of documentaries, we are not used to being around so much money. We wrote this years ago, when Harvey Weinstein was still at Miramax. We did not write it to direct it. We talked to Scarlett about other projects over the years. Then she heard about this, and her people called us and said she wanted to do it.

Q: And the fact that Scarlett wanted to do it probably made it a hot property?

A: Robert - Oh, absolutely. As soon as she had expressed her interest, we were on a go.

Q: How involved was she in the actual making of the film, did she make suggestions and opinions while shooting?

A: Robert: - Yes. She said that the character of Annie represented someone closer to her own voice than any movie she had done. And this gave her a chance to show her girl side, not only glamour. She wanted to look very ordinary, she coloured her hair, and she pulled it off. Would you let Scarlett, known as 'the sexiest woman alive', into your house to be your nanny, looking as she normally does?

Shari: I have friends who hired sexy nannies, and they had to send them home to redress. It became too much with guys whistling after them in the street.

Q: There are several references to the most classic nanny film of them all, ”Mary Poppins”, for instance Annie dreams that a red umbrella takes her flying over Manhattan. You seem to like that film?

A: Shari: We both love Mary Poppins. It´s a masterpiece. We have watched it a lot. It´s an incredible film, and not only for children. It is interesting that it is so dark. She leaves the children, even though they love her. Her job is to show up and teach the parents how to treat the kids.

Robert: In our film, Annie becomes emotionally involved, and that is her undoing. Mary Poppins was always conscious not to become involved that way.

Q: The film was all shot on location in New York?`

Robert: Everything was on location, except for the flat where Mr and Mrs X live. The rules of these apartment buildings are so extreme, that we could not shoot there. It was difficult even to get access to the lobbies, the people living in those flats would not let us into their elevators, etc.

Shari: - We visited a lot of the these flats, and it was wild just looking at their clothing. You could buy one of these apartments with the amount of money they had on the racks. They had bags that were very nice, but that cost $30,000 apiece. And there was a waiting list to buy them. I don´t know who these people are, but it is depressing with people spending so much money on clothes and bags.

Robert: Yes, if you spend $30,000 on a bag, it is depressing.

Shari: Our son is adopted from Guatemala, and we went there to get him in the middle of shooting the film. There was so much poverty there. And then you see someone with a $30,000 bag. It´s hard not to critizise.

Q: But what do the people who live in these flats say about the film? Do they acknowledge that this is about them?

A: Shari - We have had screenings for them, and they loved it. They all said things like ”oh, it´s so true, well, I´m not like that myself, but I know people who are”.

Q: There have been comparisons to The Devil Wears Parada, would you agree?

A: Shari: - Yes, they are in a way in the same genre. They are both like comic books for women, in that way they are similar.

Q: Let´s talk more about the casting. You previously worked with Paul Giamatti in American Splendor, and he has since become a big name thanks to films like Sideways. Here he plays the bad guy of the piece.

A: Robert: After American Splendor, a lot of people thought of him as a slob and just offered him parts like that. But he can do anything, and it was wonderful to cast him against type. His character is totally unredeemable.

Shari: He loved playing a jerk with red hair. There is a website for socialites, with ads for private planes and domestic services and things like that. I looked at it and there was this picture of a man with red hair. It was the best look I had seen. I emailed the picture to Paul, and he quickly colored his hair red. He also clean shaved his chest. It was smooth as a baby´s. We did not ask him to do it, it was his own crazy idea.

Q: What experiences do you yourselves have of the nanny-world?

A: Shari: - Right after college I didn´t know what to do, and I worked in this world, not as a nanny, though. This family lived in a flat that looked like nothing I had ever seen. He was wonderful, while she made Mrs X look like an angel. I worked there one year, until I couldn´t take the abuse anymore. She tried to completelly take over my life.

Q: This film has been made within the studio system, while American Splendor was an indie film. Was there a great difference?

A: Robert: Yes. On American Splendor we had total control, and the film cost less than three million dollars. This was more expensive, and if a film is more expensive, you have to answer to more people and a lot of minds want to have their say.

Q: What are you doing next?

A: Robert: - Something smaller. We need to start quickly, the possibility of an actor´s strike is hanging over everybody. All the studios are starting to stockpile.

Shari: We like to direct things that we write ourselves. That does not mean we have anything against working with the studios.

Q: What would happen if you were approached for a project and one of you liked it and the other one didn´t?

A: Shari: It wouldn´t be worth it. We both have to share an interest in whatever we are doing. But I´m not that nervous about it.

Robert: We did a documentary last year, about road movies. It´s about why road movies are so American. And we have interviewed them all, Monte Hellman, Dennis Hopper, Alexander Payne, Wim Wenders.

Here's what critics in the US have made of The Nanny Diaries so far:

"It sounds like the ultimate chick flick with crossover potential - Scarlett Johansson learning a lot about life and a little about love in a film based on a cornerstone of chick lit - but not even chicks will get much out of The Nanny Diaries." - Bill Goodykoontz (Arizona Republic).

"...down to Earth and impossibly pretty graduate takes a demeaning job working for a megabitch boss in fashionista Manhattan. Sound familiar? Well this Devil Wears Prada knock-off screams 'fake' at every turn..." - (Metro newspaper).

"The movie belongs to Linney, who brings a full-blooded dimension to what could have been a misogynistic cutout. Holding one's own opposite her is no mean feat, but Johansson acquits herself well." - Ken Fox (TV Guide's Movie Guide).

"An awful lot of good talent has been squandered in this by-the-numbers film version of the bestselling tell-all about the lifestyles and child-rearing habits of the rich residents of New York's Upper East Side." - Marjorie Baumgarten (Austin Chronicle).

"The movie shouldn’t open in the Museum of Natural History but the Museum of the Moving Image - with a display of chick-flick clichés through the ages." - David Edelstein
(New York Magazine).

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