What do you get when you cross Pretty Woman with Working Girl?  No, not Street Walking Child, you have Jennifer Lopez’s latest romantic comedy, Maid in Manhattan. This Cinderella story finds chambermaid Marisa Ventura (Lopez, from Enough) not only going to the ball, but wearing the size 9 glass slipper when her foot is a 7 1/2 or as her friend Stephanie (Marrissa Matrone) puts it “than you are an 8.” Glad to know all of us 7 1/2’s are really 8’s squeezing our foot into a shoe too small so we can sacrifice comfort for a make believe illusion that we have control over our shoe size as much as we do our height. Well, back to the movie based on a story written by John Hughes, which I am happy to see he has moved on from teenage angst to an adult story.

The movie begins with Marisa running late, she is trying to get her 10 year-old son Ty (Tyler Garcia Posey, Collateral Damage) to school. This future young republican listens to the best of the 70’s music and studies Richard Nixon and Kissenger. Once Ty is at school Marisa takes several buses to her job as a maid in a swanky 4 star hotel. As she and the other service staff are briefed on the new guests, among which are the senatorial candidate Chris Marshall (Ralph Fiennes, Red Dragon) and psycho socialite Caroline Lane (Natasha Richardson). Side bar, has Natasha done any other role than pushy, bitchy socialite always being dumped for the underdog? I didn’t think so. Talk about getting stuck in a role. Well this is where we learn that Marisa has aspirations to join management and as it so happens, a position is opening up, how convenient. Well, while in the socialite’s room her friend Stephanie pushes her to try on this $5000.00 Dolce white pant’s outfit. At the same time Ty meets Chris and Rufus (the dog) in the elevator and charms him with his knowledge of politics. Ty asks if he can come along if his mother gives permission, so they trot off to the Park Suite where Marisa answers the door. Now of course she can’t confess this was not her room, she only cleans it while wearing the guest’s brand new clothes, so instead she leaves with him in pumps that are way to big, but she must know something the rest of us don’t, how to keep pumps that don’t fit on her feet while she walks and climbs rocks. Chris is smitten and asks Marisa to a $2500.00 a plate fundraiser for inner city youth literacy, which she declines. All this playing hard to get makes him pursue her more aggressively. So he enlists the butler Lionel Bloch (Bob Hoskins, Enemy at the Gates) and his aide Jerry Siegel (Stanley Tucci, Road to Perdition) to help him seek out the woman in the Park Suite, which is when the story gets interesting.

The story has many flaws, but hey this is a Hollywood Cinderella story, so all that matters is the outcome and without me saying a word you know how it ends. Although Stephanie’s question never was answered, regarding the size of Fiennes hands. Rumor on the Red Dragon set was they had to digitally remove some of the pepperoni because it wasn’t that kind movie. So yes Stephanie, he has big hands, but in this movie only J Lo would know. So, no nudity or booty shots, but an entertaining picture without a nude Fiennes. I give Maid in Manhattan a nine on the About-Movies.com scale.

Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:48:10 AM

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