Uptown Girls

This is a painfully bad, dreary, star vehicle for offbeat actress Brittany Murphy that tries to draw deep psychological drama and big tears from a brain-dead plot. Murphy plays the orphaned daughter of a rock star who loses all her money and opts to become a bratty child’s (Dakota Fanning) nanny. Director Boaz Yakin seems clueless as to what type of film he is making, and the results are a schizoid mess. Murphy is a likeable actress, but this sort of stuff is more suited to Bullocks and Ryans. This is another example of Hollywood taking a decent actress and overexposing her in Reese Witherspoon fashion. Fanning might have some talent, but here, she is just plain scary, and needs to have her overwrought emotions reeled in. A good contender for one of the year’s worst; the stuff is cringe worthy.