If you’ve ever rushed your kids from preschool to swimming lessons while a granola bar in the car serves as lunch for everyone along the way, The Nanny Diaries will be an irresistible guilty pleasure. Based on the 2002 novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus – which was itself based on the pair’s actual experiences as nannies to wealthy Manhattan families – The Nanny Diaries exposes privileged parental irresponsibility in all its shocking glory. Scarlett Johansson is sweet and sympathetic as the nanny victim, but Laura Linney is the reason this rises above being a feature-length cheap shot. The layers she gives the initially monstrous socialite mother here garners something close to sympathy by the end.
