Maid in Manhattan

16 Comments

Ever wondered what happened to John Hughes, the writer of teen comedies in the '80s? (He was in his mid-30s then.) The guy who wrote Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Some Kind of Wonderful? And produced and/or directed half of those?

Somehow it never occurred to me to look at his subsequent career. I missed the fact that he wrote all four of the Home Alone movies, for example, not to mention all four of the Beethoven movies. And various other terrible-looking comedies throughout the '90s.

Now what he's written is the story (though not the screenplay, which was written by the guy who wrote Working Girl) for Maid in Manhattan. Which is odd, because I coulda sworn the story has been around for a couple hundred years; it used to be titled "Cinderella."

Why did you see this movie, Jed? Well, because it has Jennifer Lopez, Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, and Bob Hoskins in it—with a cast like that, I told myself, it can't be all bad. And the previews made it look like vaguely enjoyable fluff, and I often like romantic comedies.

Well, I was mostly right. It wasn't all bad, and it was vaguely enjoyable fluff. But, sadly, much of the cast's talent is wasted.

The story proceeds pretty much exactly as you'd expect, even if you weren't familiar with that old story called "Cinderella"; no surprises. There's much public embarrassment and humiliation at various points. There are also a few charming moments: Tucci gets a couple of good facial expressions, J. Lo sparkles now and then, Ralph Fiennes stands around looking good, and Bob Hoskins is dignified.

But if you're tempted to go see it, don't. Instead, read the best lines, quoted below, and then go watch the far superior Two Weeks Notice (for the mismatched romantic comedy with charming leads and good chemistry between them, plus smart and funny dialogue) and Gosford Park (for the upstairs/downstairs maid-and-butler politics).

I wrote down three bits of dialogue during the movie; don't know if any of them are at all entertaining out of context.

Ty (10-year-old son of J. Lo's character, Marisa; big fan of Simon & Garfunkel): Why'd they break up?

Marisa: Who?

Ty: Simon and Garfunkel.

Marisa: You got me. You can Google it at school.

I've never heard the word "Google" used in a movie before, much less used in a movie as a verb. Cool!

Some of the dialogue was entertaining just 'cause it was so (intentionally) disjointed:

Bextrum (vaguely inept hotel-manager guy, attempting to be encouraging): So you see, Miss Ventura, when life shuts one door, it opens a window. ...So jump.

And then there's this:

Reporter: Mr. Marshall! What's your relationship with the Latin community?

Jerry Siegel (Marshall's campaign manager, played by Stanley Tucci): Excellent—he speaks Latin. —Spanish.

And finally, one I didn't catch when it went by in the movie, but IMDB had it listed:

Chris (Fiennes): I'm Chris Marshall.

Jerry (Tucci): I'm bald and no one in particular.

So you can see you didn't miss much.

Oh, wait, I have a question: What exactly is the Paul Simon song "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" about? I could never tell whether it was about a pedophile (which seemed unlikely, given the song's popularity) or gay teen romance (also seems unlikely) or interracial romance (conceivable, but why "it was against the law"?), or what. Regardless, it seemed like rather an odd choice of opening song for this movie.

16 Responses to “Maid in Manhattan”

  1. Will Quale

    Well, Googling (which has been used lots on Buffy, I think) turns up this page, which has several interview snippets with Simon about the song:

    With ‘Me and Julio’, which I think is certainly one of the most distinctive records of its day, how did that come about? How was that born?

    You know, I don’t remember that one, very clearly. I think I wrote that rhythm ( … ) and I think I really liked the idea of getting the name ‘Julio’ into a pop song, and as for the rest of it, it was just a fantasy song. I’m not sure that it meant anything, although there was a sort of a famous interpretation of it here by Truman Capote that said it was all about homosexual experience in the schoolyard.

    That you’d had or he’d had?

    Certainly not that I’d had. I don’t know the reason, but that’s what he thought the song was about.

    –Paul Simon Solo TV Documentary (1986, Omnibus)

    … Even “Me and Julio,” it’s pure confection.

    What is it that the mama saw? The whole world want to know.

    I have no idea what it is.

    Four people said that was the first thing I would ask you.

    Something sexual is what I imagine, but when I say “something,” I never bothered to figure out what it was. Didn’t make any difference to me. First of all, I think it’s funny to sing–“Me and Julio.” It’s very funny to me. And when I started to sing “Me and Julio,” I started to laugh, and that’s when I decided to make the song called “Me and Julio”; otherwise I wouldn’t have made it that. I like the line about the radical priest. I think that’s funny to have in a song.

    –The Rolling Stone Interviews: Paul Simon (1972, Jon Landau)

    So there you have it: it means nothing, it just sounds funny. At least, so says Simon.

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  2. Jenn Reese

    I saw Maid in Manhattan with the family at Christmas. The only intersection of our tastes is romantic comedies of the fluff variety.

    I thought it was terrible. I’m normally a huge fan of Ralph Fiennes, but no one could save this film. Especially the heroine. She isn’t proactive at any point in the story, and without her side-kick, would still be where she started off.

    Bad, bad writing. You definitely picked the best lines. 🙂

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  3. Mary Anne

    Huh. I always thought it was about a threesome with Rosie (who was probably also underage).

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  4. John Borneman

    The Online Writing Workshop, a highly influential group at least in the zombie unicorn spec fic arena, has been using google as a verb for some time. It is convenient on the interactive mailing list to reply to a query with, “have you googled on that quesiton, yet?”

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  5. Jed

    Sorry, wasn’t clear: I see the verb “to Google” in widespread use online; I even use it myself, though I’m sympathetic to Google’s trademark-dilution concerns. I’d just never heard anyone use it in a movie before, much less in the opening two minutes of a movie in which computers otherwise don’t appear at all.

    Not too surprised to hear it’s turned up on Buffy, though; the writers there are pretty plugged in to geek culture, and the lead time between writing and appearing onscreen isn’t nearly as long for TV. What surprised me was hearing the term in a thoroughly mainstream movie that appeared in 2002, which I would normally assume would mean the line was written in 2000 or earlier. And I don’t think many people outside the geek community were using the verb “to Google” in 2000, though I could be wrong.

    So I’m guessing the line was added very late. I think it might even be a voice-over; perhaps it was originally something like “you can look it up online” or even “you can look it up in the encyclopedia.”

    Btw, I like an IMDB reviewer’s take on the movie:

    “Let me tell you what I think happened here. Somebody wrote a script in the ’50s for a Christmas movie about a maid in Manhattan. The movie was supposed to star Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, but they must have been busy that year….”

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  6. Jed

    Thanks for the “Me and Julio” info, Will! I had Googled for it, and even found that page, but I didn’t actually visit the page because I assumed from the Google squib that it was only a guitar-tablature page without further info.

    I think Paul Simon was being a little disingenuous in saying “Something sexual is what I imagine, but when I say ‘something,’ I never bothered to figure out what it was” but also denying that there’s anything homosexual about it. Unless the “me” in the song is female—in which case Mary Anne’s comment about Rosie (thanks—I’d forgotten that line) comes into play.

    Anyway, interesting that he didn’t intend anything in particular.

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  7. Jacob

    Do we have a definitive usage note on “google” as a verb? Do you google something, or google for something, or google on something? All three of these usages appear in other comments above. Personally I like the first one, because I think it’s funnier.

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  8. David Moles

    At some early age I was told that “Me and Julio” had something to do with Julio Gallo; I never could figure out how one bottle of cheap wine could lead to all those consequences. The Truman Capote interpretation makes much more sense.

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  9. jere7my

    Just a note — the lyric is actually “See _you_, me, and Julio down by the schoolyard” (the “you” is nearly elided, but you can hear it if you listen closely), so whatever it is they’re up to, it takes three of them. Us. Whatever.

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  10. Jed

    Huh—I’d always heard that as “Seein’ me and” (or maybe “See-a me and”) rather than “See you, me, and.” But the lyrics on the official Paul Simon site agree with you. Interesting.

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  11. Will Quale

    Wow! That’s gotta be one of the most common and least known mondegreens in pop music. . . .

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  12. Shmuel

    I saw Two Weeks Notice and Maid in Manhattan back to back and thought the latter was unquestionably the better of the two. Better characters, more authentic New York feel (comparatively speaking, I hasten to stress), more satisfying resolution… the only category Sandy’s picture leads in is the soundtrack, but not by much. Quoting lines out of context does the film a disservice, frankly.

    Granted, this is a question of which formulatic romantic comedy set in New York with Norah Jones on the soundtrack you prefer, but we’re talking relatively here. 🙂

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  13. Jed

    Maybe just a question of what you bring into it, then—my suburban California hippie background certainly let me identify more with Sandra Bullock’s raised-by-hippies lawyer character than with the working-class Jennifer Lopez character, and I don’t know anything about New York so I didn’t have a basis for comparison on that front. But really, I liked pretty much everything about Two Weeks Notice (except the bathroom-humor scene) way more than pretty much anything about Maid in Manhattan, so I think we’re just gonna have to disagree on this.

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  14. Mary Anne

    I liked them both about equally. Maybe a slight edge to Maid in Manhattan, because I remember more details about her whole job situation and the racial/ethnic/class component was well-handled and interesting.

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  15. Jacob

    On “See you, me and Julio down by the schoolyard”:

    I knew about the “you”, but I always heard it as “see you”, as in “goodbye”. So goodbye to Rosie, and goodbye to me and Julio. Those days (whatever they were) are over now.

    Just my take.

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  16. Jed

    Addendum: I gather that the lines I quoted from Maid in Manhattan may actually have been the first explicit mention of Google in a major film.

    In TV, though, I’m told that the first explicit mention of Google was in the Buffy episode “Help,” which aired on 15 October 2002, which predates Maid‘s release date (13 December 2002) by just under two months.

    Still, I’m pleased that I wasn’t just being oblivious by not having heard it mentioned in a movie before Maid.

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