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Out of Domestic Chaos
Comes A Warm Romance
of TheColumnists.com
You might say there are some kids who just shouldn't be having a nanny. Those awful kids with switchblades from "The Blackboard Jungle," for instance. They might not have minded "having" a nanny, but not in any way we could discuss on these pages.
A better example would be the kids from Hallmark's new movie "The Nanny Express." They're still grieving over the recent death of their Mom and resent having a "nanny" taking over the duties that used to be performed by their beloved Mom. They are very good at "nanny-busting," too. We watch them harass at least half a dozen nannies into early retirement before they finally meet their match.
That would be in the person of Kate (Vanessa Marcil), a petite powerhouse who doesn't know the meaning of the term "surrender!" The kids--arrogant teen-ager Emily (Natalie Dreyfuss) and her sneaky 9-year-old brother Ben (Uriah Shelton)--pull out all the stops in their efforts to send Kate packing.
Here's one tried and true nanny-chaser stunt by Ben: After Kate puts the clothes in the washing machine, he sneaks in and adds about a quart more detergent. Result: A soap suds Mt. Vesuvius all over the laundry room.
Ben also likes to put his favorite pet rat in the drawer where the towels and linens are supposed to go. All a nanny needs to do is put her hand on a rat and she's sure to set another world speed record getting out of the house, right?
Sister Emily has another surefire nanny-wrecker: Sneak into the kitchen and turn up the temperature of the oven by another 200 degrees just moments after Kate has put in the roast. Result: Smoke alarms up the wazoo.
But Katie has been raised on the premise that adults are smarter than kids and lives by the code of the jungle: Do unto those brats before they can regroup and do it unto you!
So, when the kids come home from school and walk across the lawn to the front door of their palatial Beverly Hills manor house, Kate flicks the switch on the lawn sprinklers, turning the kids into a couple of soggy wretches long before they could do it to her for a second time.
The maid/housekeeper/nanny who's at war with the kids who want her to leave is a standard comedy situation for movies or TV shows. It's so old a storyline that the producers need to dust off the cobwebs before handing it to the writing staff and saying, "Hey, let's see if this old doggie can run again!"
But I'll confess it still works if the circumstances are right--and they're very right in "The Nanny Express," which is a thoroughly enjoyable movie, thanks to the careful development of the Nanny character, the irresistible charm of Vanessa Marcil and the romance that ultimately flowers between her and the kids' father (Brennan Elliott).
The kids just see Kate as another interloper into the family life they share with their widowed dad. Emily becomes even more vengeful when she accidentally catches her Dad and Kate in a spontaneous kiss, something that even surprises them since they didn't really know they were falling in love with each other. Once Emily sees that, she sets out to make sure Kate doesn't get Dad in her clutches.
For those who remember Vanessa Marcil as Gina Kincaid from the original "Beverly Hills, 90210," seeing her as Kate the Nanny will be something of a shock. On that famous prime time soap for the young, Marcil was a sexpot, actually becoming the show's resident hottie when Tiffany Amber-Theissen's Valerie Malone character went away for awhile.
In "The Nanny Express," Marcil is a do-gooder whose own Mom died prematurely, leaving her to care for her ailing father (Dean Stockwell), who has debilitating heart disease. She works constantly, teaching underprivileged minority kids at her church after she finishes her nanny shift in Beverly Hills. She's also working to earn her teaching degree. Her minister (Stacy Keach) thinks she's a saint-in-the-making. She's so good that it's a wonder she doesn't sparkle in the dark.
People who like G-rated movies will be glad to know Kate the Nanny doesn't vamp the kids' father. In fact, Kate wears nerdy glasses and dresses conservatively. If she appeared like this in "Beverly Hills, 90210," they'd have put her on a bus to Ventura before her first episode was finished.
But I found great entertainment in watching Marcil try to keep her instinctive sex appeal under tight control. Ben, the 9-year-old, doesn't miss anything, though, and he pretty much becomes the first member of the family to fall for her. Maybe it all starts when she delivers the expected "eeek!" at the sight of his pet rat, but shows up with the rat comfortably crawling around her shoulder in the next scene. Little boys aren't dumb: They know a pretty girl who likes rats is definitely a keeper, even if she's a nanny.
I really enjoyed "The Nanny Express," though I suppose it ought to count as a "guilty pleasure" in the overall scheme of things, TV-wise. But "pleasure" is the operative word, so check it out.
©2009 by Ron Miller. The photo is courtesy of The Hallmark Channel. This column first posted Jan. 5, 2009.
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