Dir: Wayne Wang
Maid In Manhatten (2003)Having had to endure the reprehensible Two Weeks Notice the prospect of another Rom-Com was not a welcome one. Punnily enough Maid In Manhatten comes complete with ludicrous characters and formulaic plotting. In terms of genre convention this one has all elements crossed and dotted with marksman like precision. It’s all the more surprising then to find that it’s not all bad…
Marisa is a maid in the Beresford hotel but has her mind set on management, even if she lacks the confidence to do anything about it. Tye, her son by an estranged and inconsiderate husband, is obsessed with the 1970’s and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of congressional voting habits. This later trait serves him in good stead when he chances upon paperclip clutching Republican Chris, out trying to walk his dog Rufus despite the protestations of attendant spin doctor Jerry. (J-)Lo and behold, Chris gets to meet Marisa who’s currently dressed to the max in posh gear from a room she’s meant to be cleaning and the two hit it off (with cajoling from Tye). Before you can say “Rom-Com cliché” an on-off romance blossoms with Marisa hiding behind her false “posh” personality. Much mistaken identity and tragic denouement ensues. Will true love finally triumph over the gulf of class and money? Oh come on, surely you can guess…
It would be churlish to deride a film for its generic stereotyping but Maid In Manhatten plunders every trick in the book – the “must break it off though neither wants to”, the “rich bloke and pauper girl”, the “dressing up scene”, hell they even throw in a quirky pet. That coupled with its preposterous characters – an environmentally sound Republican played by a Brit falls for management potential single mum Hispanic breadline case played by multi-millionaire J-Lo with her son having a photographic memory regarding the speeches of Nixon, Kissinger and Johnson – should ring a deafening death toll. Surprisingly it doesn’t. Wayne Wang films the whole piece with such a light touch and innocent acceptance of the material that, if you are in the right frame of mind, you can easily be swept along with the amiable frothiness of it all. This is no “laugh out loud” laffer but chuckles along steadily, the leads really interact and what’s more the kid is central to the whole piece, not a tagged-on irritant. One small fly in the ointment is the inclusion of two old French women thieves, clearly a cheap piece of contemporary xenophobia in these times of petty derision (“cheese eating coward mongers” – pur-lease) that sits completely out of spirit with the other bubbly goings on. Vacuous, clichéd and utterly absurd, Maid In Manhatten still manages to justify its running time. Oh and Bob Hoskins is in it too.
