Uptown Girls

Uptown Girls is a 2003 comedy/drama directed by Boaz Yakin and adapted from the story by Allison Jacobs into screenplay by Julia Dahl, Mo Ogrodnik and Lisa Davidowitz. It stars Brittany Murphy as a 21-year-old living a charmed life as the daughter of a famous rock and roll musician. Dakota Fanning co-stars.

Tagline: They're about to teach each other how to act their age.

Plot

Molly Gunn (Brittany Murphy) is a spoiled rock n' roll princess, living off the ample trust fund of her late rock legend father. Molly is carefree and fun-spirited but also can be irresponsible and immature, having no concept of money or the need to work for it. She keeps cash in the freezer of her Upper West Side apartment, treats her doorman like a personal servant and pays no attention to bills for phone, electricity or pet care.

When her accountant steals all of her money, Molly has to do the unthinkable (for her, at least)...get a job. After a few unsuccessful interviews and a stint at a department store, Molly finally lands a job. She is hired as a nanny for an uptight nine-year-old girl named Ray (Dakota Fanning) who's often ignored by her busy, music executive mother (Heather Locklear).

Molly and Ray couldn't be anymore different: Molly is an adult but acts like a child, and Ray is a child who acts like an adult. Although they clash at first, they come together and learn to act their age and become best friends.

Full Summary

The movie opens with a party for Molly's 22nd birthday at an exclusive dance club, arranged by her chaste childhood best friend Ingrid and Huey, a producer who is into three-way sex. In the club's ladies room, Molly thinks she's alone and expresses her insecurity over her appearance and says, "Why would I be getting a worry wrinkle?", and she receives an unexpected rejoinder from Ray, a precocious and dour 8-year-old girl (Dakota Fanning) who says,"Why would you think anyone would care?". Ray is equally rude and condescending to Molly and to Huey, who is trying to babysit her for his boss, who "can't keep a nanny ... fired their third one this month today."

Molly instantly falls for singer Neal Fox. Huey says Neal is celibate for the sake of his musical career, and Ingrid also tries to discourage her, but Molly sees Neal as a "rock and roll poet sex god" and begins to pursue him.

She proves she's Tommy Gunn's daughter by showing Neal her father's guitar collection, 16 electric and 1 acoustic on which he wrote the classic "Molly Smiles" (which begins "Daddy's little girl ...") The song is too poignant for Molly to let Neal sing it to her, because her parents died on the way back from the Budokan concert which premiered it.

Neal stays the night, breaking his vow "not ... to have romantic relationships my first year." Feeling smothered by Molly's attention and objecting to the chaos of her "looking-glass" world, he gets ready to go home. Meanwhile, the TV shows Wile E. Coyote vainly pursuing the Roadrunner. (The power, which was off the night before, has mysteriously been restored.)

Ingrid comes over and scolds Molly for her filthy apartment "beyond its normal grotesque" and refuses to console her by contradicting her plaintive "He's gone. I have no life," because "As your best friend, it's my duty not to lie to you." Ingrid tries to call accountant Bob to get the gas and electricity restored (Molly ignored the final notices), but the phone is out. Later, attorney Feldman explains that Bob milked her estate, even borrowing against her father's royalties, and advises Molly to "get a job".

Molly applies at the store where Ingrid works, taking advantage of the employee discount to buy "900 thread count" Egyptian cotton sheets for $1300. She spends all night at Neal's apartment and is found the next morning asleep on a store display and is fired.

Huey comes to the rescue and attempts to kill two birds with one stone by getting Molly a job with his own boss Roma (Ray's mother). When Ray finds out at the last moment that Molly is her new nanny, she is less than thrilled. Molly is way underdressed for the Upper East Side. Molly looks clumsy as well as inappropriately attired, breaking a high-heel sandals on the street and destroying the hall closet. In Ray's luxurious but spare home (on Fifth Avenue, directly across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art), she encounters an impersonal doctor and nurse caring for a man in a coma.

Ray shuts Molly out of her private life, refusing to tell her that the man is her father (as we learn later). In a symbolic moment showing how stringent are the requirements to gain entry into Ray's world, she curtly yells "Shoes!" before Molly can walk on the immaculate hardwood floor of her room as she gets barefoot. In a blatant contrast to Molly's mess and chaos, Ray's room is "so orderly" that the dolls are all on shelves (not to be played with), a bed and small computer desk are tucked up against the windows, and the only other furniture is a small table set for a tea party.

"Hey, you don't touch that unless I happen to invite you for tea. You just got your germy mouth all over my plastic scones." Ray angrily sprays the contaminated toy morsel. The relationship proceeds rapidly downhill from this inauspicious start with an argument over how to wash dishes. Ray actually calls her new nanny a "tree-loving hippie" and Molly quits and gets a broken nose from the swinging door.

A barefoot Molly returns to her apartment, only to find her pet pig ("Mu" as in Mu shu pork) tied to the doorknob in the hallway. She's been locked out, due to nonpayment of rent (not to mention having a pig in her pigpen of an apartment) and they tell her that she can claim whatever possession she needs until she is banned from her apartment building. Still barefoot, she tries to visit Neal later that rainy night, but he ignores the door buzzer. They haven't exactly broken up; he's got her sheets, she's got his jacket.

The next day, Ingrid invites her to live with her, but she brings way too much stuff. In tones reminiscent of 1950s suburban America (see The Stepford Wives (2004 film)), Ing advises Molly to "downsize" and "find her center". She also insists Molly pay half the rent.

Molly drops in on Ray, who after her ballet class pointedly declines to participate in freestyle dancing while the other girls enjoy taking a break from classical music for 5 minutes of On Broadway. Molly begs for her nanny job back and is accepted "on probation". As the music continues in the background, Molly dances in jubilant circles around Ray, her long blonde hair swinging as ever-somber Ray walks steadily down a Central Park path. Ray defends her refusal with a Mikhail Baryshnikov quote: "Fundamentals are the building blocks of fun."

This conversation ends in another quarrel, and Ray gives Molly the finger. Molly makes her "take it back" and then gives her "a surprise", the gift of her pet pig Mu.

Quick cut to the next scene, a yard sale of Molly's belongings incongruously taking place on a ritzy Manhattan sidewalk. Ingrid gets her to sell a putter "that Tiger Woods gave to me at the Masters" for a mere ten dollars.

In the next few scenes, Molly and Ray begin bonding, while Molly's klutzy accident-prone tendencies are highlighted. Ray even defends the Molly from a schoolmate's slur: "Her au pair said my nanny was a slutbag whore."

Eventually, Molly develops the strength to live on her own, reconciles with Neal, develops a strong friendship with Ray and begins rebuilding her fortune as a hot new designer.

Trivia

• Actress Piper Perabo was meant to assume the role of Molly Gunn, but turned it down.
• Director Boaz Yakin's previous film, Remember the Titans involved actor Denzel Washington portraying a strict character. Likewise in this film, actress Dakota Fanning did the same. Coincidentally, Washington and Fanning were paired together in the 2004 action film, Man on Fire.

Cast

• Brittany Murphy - Molly Gunn
• Dakota Fanning - Lorraine "Ray" Schleine
• Marley Shelton - Ingrid
• Donald Faison - Huey
• Jesse Spencer - Neal Fox
• Austin Pendleton - Mr. McConkey
• Heather Locklear - Roma Schleine
• Pell James - Julie
• Wynter Kullman - Holly
• Amy Korb - Kelli

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