Somebody brought the DVD. After the movie was over, nobody would own up as to who had the brilliant idea. Well Wayne Wang, remember "Smoke"? Ralph Finnes for heaven's sake, a very particular actor, very choosy or so I hear and Jennifer Lopez in the hands of a good director can deliver, remember "Out of Sight"? No. The movie seems written by people who've never seen a Preston Sturges or a Billy Wilder movie. It is a sub TV movie of the week. Even Bob Hoskins playing the Hector Elizondo part of "Pretty Woman" can't save the day. Only Natasha Richardson in an all out performance managed to make me smile. There was a time in Hollywood, not so long ago, when you could get a film made if you had Steve Guttenberg in it. Jennifer Lopez is the Steve Guttenberg of the new millennium. I don't understand how something so thoughtless, tasteless and utterly un-redeeming could get made in Manhattan, Hollywood or anywhere else. Somebody should tell Jennifer Lopez that she's not Audrey Hepburn or Jean Arthur. There is a sort of hardness about her that makes her anti-romantic. Her wardrobe as the Maid of the title is utterly insane. As is every attempt at sincerity. I'm sure Jennifer Lopez has talent but not certainly for romantic comedies. She keeps making them though. I bet she would be great in steamy melodramas. I would cast Miss. Lopez in the Bette Davis part in a remake of "Beyond the Forest"
Review of Maid in Manhattan
