Scarlett Johansson: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

And 5 That Sucked...

5. Annie Braddock - The Nanny Diaries (2007)

Based on a best-selling book, The Nanny Diaries should have been a success: the cast, which pitted Johansson alongside Paul Giamatti, Laura Linney and Chris Evans was strong enough to put audiences on seats, and the story bore striking resemblance in its bones to The Devil Wears Prada - which is precisely where the film-makers placed their targets, and apparently unashamedly so. The problems came in the details. All of them. The writing is obnoxious and stupidly ludicrous, with the story hinging on the gloriously idiotic mix-up that Linney's grotesque Disney villain caricature misheard Johansson's character's name as "Nanny" instead of Annie, and hired her on the spot. That's about as smart and as smarting as the script gets, despite clearly loftier, even hipster-like delusions of grandeur that one might expect from a Sofia Coppola copycat. The Nanny Diaries is like Cinderella without the charm, and without the urge to actually will the tragic central character out of her predicament (since she puts herself in it) and Johansson is woefully misused.