The Nanny Diaries

It Should have been a cakewalk. Released in 2002, the book The Nanny Diaries about a college graduate working as a nanny for super-rich parents, who have a long list of rules but little time for their children, was a runaway success, remaining on the bestseller list for the longest of time.

And the reason for its success was simple: who didn8217;t want to think that the super-rich were bad parents? Or that their children, despite all their expensive toys, lacked for love?

With that story, and an impressive star cast as this, all directors Berman and Pulcini had to do was stick to the script. Surprisingly that8217;s precisely what they don8217;t do.

The nanny of the book was smart, witty and clear about why she was subjecting herself to the indignities of a 24-hour job with few rewards or recognition and which obviously even the mothers themselves didn8217;t want to do. The nanny, Annie Braddock, was studying child development and wanted to observe them first hand.

In the film, Annie Johansson is miserable and confused. She is not sure about what she wants to do after college and when offered a job as a nanny, decides 8220;Why not?8221;. She lets herself be pushed around and slinks whimpering back into corners. You can8217;t shake off the feeling that she brought this upon herself, and despite all that talk of anthropology, she doesn8217;t inspire any confidence she would be good at it.

Annie is also so embarrassed about the job she has taken up that she hides it from her mother.

Linney as the cold Mrs X more intent on her spas, clothes and beauty treatments than her child, on the other hand, is quite well cast. The film8217;s Mrs X is not as detestable as the book8217;s, and Linney gets across the desperation of a woman who has everything but love. She won8217;t let her six-year-old son love her, and instead longs for a husband she knows is cheating on her. But she won8217;t admit that, even to herself.

However, for the rest, Berman and Pulcini, who also did the screenplay, oversimplify the book right till the end to give it a happy closure. For anyone who has read the book, that was not the intention of former nannies-turned-authors Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus.

Besides why change the book to squeeze in a friend for Annie, cast Alicia Keys for the role and then not use her at all?