Movie Review: The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees (2008) 

Director Gina Prince Blythewood 

Written by Gina Prince Blythewood 

Starring Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys Jennifer Russell, Sophie Okenedo, Paul Bettany

Release Date October 17th, 2008

Published October 16th, 2008 

The Secret Life of Bees is one of the most manipulative movies ever made. It takes lovable little Dakota Fanning, she of the apple cheeks and blond curls, and has her utter lines about being unlovable and never knowing her mom. Then, she is given a picture of her late, dead, mother holding her when she is a baby.

If you can get through these scenes without bawling like a baby you are a better man than me. Yes, The Secret Life of Bees is Machiavellian in it's pushy way but my heart did ache for this little girl and yes, I did cry. In an early 1960's I'm sure of someone's memory, if not exactly the collective historical memory, a little girl named Lily (Dakota Fanning) is running away from her bullying father (Paul Bettany). With her caretaker Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson) in tow, Lilly makes her way to a small town in South Carolina where a memory of her mother exists.

A scrap of paper with a black Mother Mary on it leads Lilly and Rosaleen to a bright pink house where three sisters, August (Queen Latifah), June (Alicia Keyes) and May (Sophie Okenedo), live in a bright  make a very good living cultivating and selling honey. Lilly's mother indeed has a lingering presence here and though she tries to be a stranger, August knows the little girl isn't here by accident. Running parallel to Lilly's journey are the racial politics of the early 1960's. June spends her time registering voters while Rosaleen is beaten up for trying to register.

The racial politics get only a blush, the focus of director Gina Prince Blythewood's story remains focused on Lilly and her journey toward accepting her tragic past and the role of her mother in her life all too briefly. In sticking to this story, Blythewood is blessed with Fanning's winning innocence and Queen Latifah's comforting motherly presence. The scenes between Latifah and Fanning are charged with joy and sadness and love that permeates the whole production of The Secret Life of Bees. The film radiates warmth and good feelings, pausing only briefly to acknowledge the ugliness of the time period.

Many will fault The Secret Life Of Bees for not taking more care to describe the challenges of the timeperiod. Many of those criticisms will likely fall on the character of May played by Sophie Okenedo. Her character provides shorthand for dealing with the sadness of the times. It's a cheat, there is no denying it, but I willingly looked past it toward what is very good about The Secret Life of Bees because what is good, is often very good. 

And that good comes from Latifah and Fanning whose warm glow engulfs the audience and allows them and us to forget about all of the ugliness in the world, then and now, for just a little while. Yes, the moments are manipulative but they are manipulative in ways that work. I cried. I never cry. That tells me all I need to know about the effectiveness of The Secret Life of Bees.

Movie Review: The Nanny Diaries

The Nanny Diaries (2007) 

Directed by Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini 

Written by Robert Pulcini, Shari Springer Berman 

Starring Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, Alicia Keys, Chris Evans, Paul Giamatti 

Release Date August 24th, 2007

Published August 23rd, 2007  

In an interview with the New York Times, directors Robert Pulcini and Sherry Springer Berman, the husband and wife team behind American Splendor, told a reporter that they really wanted to direct a mainstream Hollywood feature. Immediately, after reading that, I knew the movie was doomed. Trying to make a mainstream Hollywood movie is to fail at making a mainstream Hollywood movie. Immediately you link yourself to an almost untenable template of cliches and perfunctory scenes. Throw in a dull romantic subplot and you get the supremely disappointing The Nanny Diaries.

Adapted from the terrifically catty bestseller by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, two real life, former New York Nannies, The Nanny Diaries stars Scarlett Johannson as Annie. An aimless college grad, Annie longs to get into anthropology. For now she is content to get out of her mom's house. When Annie meets 4 year old Grayer (Nicholas Art) she saves him from a collision with a careless jogger and is immediately offered the opportunity to become his nanny, though she has no child care experience whatsoever.

Sensing an interesting anthropological opportunity to observe the customs and mores of upper east side New Yorkers, Annie accepts the job and finds herself in an ugly world of consumption and child neglect. Grayer's parents, who Annie refers to as Mr. & Mrs. X (Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney), treat their son as an inconvenience, as a pawn, and as a status symbol.

Grayer's plight forces Annie to commit beyond her anthropological interests and try and find ways to protect the poor kid from his awful parents. Tacked onto this plot is a romance between Annie and a guy she calls Harvard Hottie (Chris Evans), a nickname she uses to keep him at a distance, a tactic that fails miserably after just one date.

What is lacking in The Nanny Diaries is the kind of catty insights and snarky wit of the book by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. The film adaptation is a spineless version of the book that tries to go for heart strings instead of the funny bone and misses both quite badly. In their attempt to make a mainstream Hollywood comedy, directors Sherry Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini dull their sharp edges to appeal to a broader audience.

Someone should have told them that you can't please everyone no matter how bland and inoffensive you might be. Bland and inoffensive is certainly a good description of The Nanny Diaries which, though the parents played by Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti are truly awful people, the film refuses to judge them too harshly. Linney is almost sympathetic in her sadness, while Giamatti is off-screen too often for us to judge him much at all. Mr. X is a surface bastard with seemingly no motivation for his bad behavior.

The one element of The Nanny Diaries that works is Scarlett Johannson who plays the role that is given to her to the best of her abilities. Though hampered by a role that should be a little smarter, funnier and more biting and insightful, Johannson is, at the very least, charismatic and that goes a long way to improving an otherwise dismal movie. It's a shame that Johannson's romance with Chris Evans' Harvard Hottie never really sparks. The romantic subplot exists only to break the monotony of the dreary family plot and for that we are thankful. Unfortunately, the distractions are brief and Johansson and Evans never find that elusive romantic connection.

The Nanny Diaries lacks the spine to really tear into these awful parents and instead is understanding to a ludicrous extent. The actions of these parents is akin to emotional abuse and yet by the end we are to believe that young Grayer has hopes for a bright happy future without his nanny for protection. The film needed to be edgier, more judgmental, with the kind of catty insider perspective that made the book a beach read phenomenon.

Spineless and forgettable, The Nanny Diaries is a real disappointment. When independent directors like Sherry Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini move into the realm of the mainstream the hope is they won't bend to mainstream conventions but will bend convention to there artistic will. That doesn't happen in The Nanny Diaries and the result is a movie that tries to please all audiences and ends up pleasing few.