A Nanny for Christmas, a straight to DVD stinker, is a concentrated effort on the part of the filmmakers to cram as many rom-com clichés on screen as possible so as to fool the gift wrapping housewives who are sort of watching it into thinking that it is something original. The plot focuses on a gorgeous ad executive named Ally (Emmanuelle Vaugier) who loses her job at a very unfortunate time, the bill collectors have been calling and her mortgage was already in jeopardy. Soliciting help from her roommate she gets an interview with Samantha (Cynthia Gibb), a female Scrooge with a heart of coal and nasty disposition to match. She also happens to have an ad agency all her own. At said interview things go brilliantly until it is revealed that she was actually being considered for the job of nanny for Samantha’s two young children (I guess Ally’s complexion was just one shade too dark). Ally, already up a creek, takes the job so that she can stay in Los Angeles and she begins working for a woman whose big prize for selling out all the time is having enough resources to hire an Ivy League educated woman to raise her children for her.
Everything here moves quickly (it clocks in at 88 minutes so it has to) and soon Ally is starting to recognize what sort of mess she has walked herself into. The kids, it would seem, are on the fast track to being on Intervention. The eat flax for breakfast, study Shakespeare every day, do yoga, and have next to no contract with either of their parents (their rarely seen father is on the other side of the country in New York making even more stacks of cash for the family). Even kissing has been banned from the premises (“Don’t spread germs”) so “affection” is shown via air kisses. The plot is old hat, to be sure, but what really kills it is the atrocious screenplay that is dumbed down to the point of pervasive retardation. The dialogue is clunky and obvious and everything else is conveyed through cheap formulas and stereotypes.
To make matters worse Ally begins to fall in love with a stuffed suit named Justin (Richard Ruccolo) who, conveniently, also works for Samantha, but out of sheer shame doesn’t have the guts to tell him that she is actually the babysitter. This allows writers Michael Ciminera and Richard Gnolfo to devote the entire second half of the movie to Ally building and then defending this gigantic deception wherein she tells Justin that she is a consultant who normally works out of the New York office. And admittedly this section of the film works well enough even though the simplicity of what they are doing is so in your face that it still felt like a bush league, grad school project. Tell me if any of these ideas strike you as familiar: They go in for their first kiss – but then his cell phone rings. She tries to tell him the truth about who she really is – but they knock over a Christmas tree before she can squeeze it out. She agrees to accompany him to the climactic office holiday party as his date – after she had already agreed to take the kids to the same party for Samantha. No prizes I’m afraid for guessing whether or not their love would eventually blossom or if her web of lies would be exposed by the time the end credits rolled.
In a bit of good news not EVERYTHING here is an unmitigated disaster. Not every movie needs to be as severe as Black Swan and this one does well by spreading yuletide cheer and keeping the mood upbeat. Ally also spends a good hunk of the movie taking down everything Samantha stands for. She feeds the kids pancakes, teaches them that theatre can be fun and encourages them to roll around in the grass as opposed to doing silly, pointless yoga. My issue is that I don’t think that the writers are actually on board with the value of enjoying life over making profits. Ally, after all, is only slumming it with these kids because she needs to save her “Starter House” (gross). And then the second Samantha throws her career a bone she leaps all over it and declares it an “honor” to get back into the corporate realm. Still as a bit of white noise/mindless entertainment that can be left on in the background you could do a lot worse. But I would urge you to remember that we are living in a time when we the general public are inundated with media, the options are limitless, so why watch this when there are probably 30 really great Christmas movies already in existence that you haven’t seen yet?
The DVD picture itself looks fine, I would however take issue with the directing and the cinematography of this film, things that the DVD can do nothing to help.
They get big bonus points here for including an audio commentary that includes just about everybody who worked on the film. Okay, I’m kidding. But it does have two producers, a writer, the director and Emmanuelle Vaugier and Richard Ruccolo. Other than that there is just a trailer for this film and for a few others.
Harmless enough but totally useless when it comes to fun or originality. It’s the kind of junk that gets on at Christmas time because it is safe for the whole family but ends up just leaving everybody in a ticked off mood.
Hybrid presents A Nanny for Christmas. Directed by: Michael Feifer. Starring: Emmanuelle Vaugier, Dean Cain, Richard Ruccolo, Cynthia Gibb. Written by: Michael Ciminera & Richard Gnolfo. Running time: 88 Minutes. Rating: NR. Released on DVD: November 23, 2010.
