Cinderella is reborn
May 08, 2003
Does Jennifer Lopez really act? Is there more to her than her much glorified derriere and her over-active love life?
Film: Maid In Manhattan
Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Ralph Fiennes
Director: Wayne Wang
Screenplay: Kevin Wade
Running time: 105 mins.
Rating: PG-13
Showing: Cineplex, Garden City
Preview by: Kalungi Kabuye
Does Jennifer Lopez really act? Is there more to her than her much glorified derriere and her over-active love life? Will she ever be more at the Oscar Awards than the person with the most outrageous outfit?
J-Lo might have never won an Oscar, or even been nominated for one, but this film, Maid in Manhattan, was a much needed vote of confidence for her acting abilities, at least at the American box office. It is also a very unlikely role: J-Lo as Cinderella?
In the film, Lopez acts as Marisa Ventura, a maid in a posh Manhattan hotel. She has a bright grade school son named Ty (Tyler Posey), who for some reason is an expert on Richard M. Nixon. Maria badly wants to be in management but is too shy and timid to ask, although nudged on by her best friend and fellow maid Stephanie Kehoe (Marissa Matrone).
In the hotel there are several guests, including rich socialite Caroline Lane (Natasha Richardson) who happens to be a something of an air-head. The future Senator Christopher Marshal is also a guest.
As it happens in these movies, Marshal happens to bump into Marissa as she tries on one of Caroline’s dresses, and thinks she is the owner of Caroline’s suite. And so, Prince Charming immediately falls in love with Cinderella, who must race back to the hotel and resume her life of scrubbing and bed-making.
Meanwhile, Marshall invites the occupant of the luxury suite to lunch, only to find it is not Marissa, but Caroline. In an ironic twist, Marissa has to serve Marshall and the real Caroline during the lunch from hell.
A kind veteran butler, Lionel Bloch (Bob Hoskins), volunteers to teach Marissa the ropes, as the unreal romance goes on. Marissa could have cleared things up right from the start, but maybe she feared that a Republican senatorial candidate would not want to go out with a Puerto Rican maid. Her son, of course, thinks his mom deserves better, and is suitable for Marshall. And of course the press turns every meeting of the two into page one stories.
Romantic stories like Maid in Manhattan are nothing new, and the idea of a not-too-well-off girl falling in love with a wealthy man, and hoping to make it work in his world, are ten a penny. But, as The Chicago Sun’s movie critic Roger Ebert put it, “We go to movies for many reasons, and one of them is to see beautiful people fall in love. This is not shameful, it is alright to go to a romantic comedy.â€
In its most poignant scene, Marissa attends a charity ball looking gorgeous in a dress borrowed from the hotel boutique and wearing Harry Winston diamonds.
And when she runs away from the ball and Marshall follows her, well, it worked in Cinderella, didn’t it?
Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Ralph Fiennes
Director: Wayne Wang
Screenplay: Kevin Wade
Running time: 105 mins.
Rating: PG-13
Showing: Cineplex, Garden City
Preview by: Kalungi Kabuye
Does Jennifer Lopez really act? Is there more to her than her much glorified derriere and her over-active love life? Will she ever be more at the Oscar Awards than the person with the most outrageous outfit?
J-Lo might have never won an Oscar, or even been nominated for one, but this film, Maid in Manhattan, was a much needed vote of confidence for her acting abilities, at least at the American box office. It is also a very unlikely role: J-Lo as Cinderella?
In the film, Lopez acts as Marisa Ventura, a maid in a posh Manhattan hotel. She has a bright grade school son named Ty (Tyler Posey), who for some reason is an expert on Richard M. Nixon. Maria badly wants to be in management but is too shy and timid to ask, although nudged on by her best friend and fellow maid Stephanie Kehoe (Marissa Matrone).
In the hotel there are several guests, including rich socialite Caroline Lane (Natasha Richardson) who happens to be a something of an air-head. The future Senator Christopher Marshal is also a guest.
As it happens in these movies, Marshal happens to bump into Marissa as she tries on one of Caroline’s dresses, and thinks she is the owner of Caroline’s suite. And so, Prince Charming immediately falls in love with Cinderella, who must race back to the hotel and resume her life of scrubbing and bed-making.
Meanwhile, Marshall invites the occupant of the luxury suite to lunch, only to find it is not Marissa, but Caroline. In an ironic twist, Marissa has to serve Marshall and the real Caroline during the lunch from hell.
A kind veteran butler, Lionel Bloch (Bob Hoskins), volunteers to teach Marissa the ropes, as the unreal romance goes on. Marissa could have cleared things up right from the start, but maybe she feared that a Republican senatorial candidate would not want to go out with a Puerto Rican maid. Her son, of course, thinks his mom deserves better, and is suitable for Marshall. And of course the press turns every meeting of the two into page one stories.
Romantic stories like Maid in Manhattan are nothing new, and the idea of a not-too-well-off girl falling in love with a wealthy man, and hoping to make it work in his world, are ten a penny. But, as The Chicago Sun’s movie critic Roger Ebert put it, “We go to movies for many reasons, and one of them is to see beautiful people fall in love. This is not shameful, it is alright to go to a romantic comedy.â€
In its most poignant scene, Marissa attends a charity ball looking gorgeous in a dress borrowed from the hotel boutique and wearing Harry Winston diamonds.
And when she runs away from the ball and Marshall follows her, well, it worked in Cinderella, didn’t it?