Maid in Manhattan
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.
