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MAID IN MANHATTAN Send This Review to a Friend
Cinderella is alive and well in the modern person of Jennifer Lopez as Marisa Ventura, who is struggling to raise a 10-year-old son while working as a maid in a Manhattan luxury hotel. Ralph Fiennes plays her Prince Charming as politico Christopher Marshall, who aspires to the U.S. Senate. When he mistakes Marisa for a hotel guest he is smitten. There's plenty of room for complications in director Wayne Wang's romantic romp written by Kevin Wade from a story by Edmond Dantes. The result is a trifle that is pleasant to watch without rising to anything superior.
Both Lopez and Fiennes are enjoyable, and there is an earthiness about Lopez's performance that gives a working class tilt to the film. There is nothing condescending about the way her character is written and played. Marisa has aspirations, but she also knows her poverty roots and there is always dignity to the way she looks at the world. Her son Ty is nicely played by Tyler Garcia Posey, but his involvement in the relationship is too cute by far.
The behind-the-scenes hotel life is interesting in depicting the solidarity of the employees and the routine that it takes to run the place. It is clear that the Waldorf-Astoria is the site, but it has been renamed the Beresford. Would the Waldorf want to be tagged with some of what goes on in the screenplay? Bob Hoskins has a key role as overseer of the staff who makes sure service is impeccable, and Natasha Richardson is very amusing as the well-heeled bitch who is wooing Marshall. Stanley Tucci is frantically effective as the aide trying to keep Marshall on track and avoid scandal, an arduous task given the candidate-maid story about to explode.
This is the sort of a film in which the maid has to educate the candidate as to life's real values, and he has to overcome obstacles to commit to her. There isn't any glass slipper, but the contrivances are plentiful. Yet the film has its share of laughs and the cast, from the stars to the supporting players, is a good one. A Columbia Pictures release.
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