Uptown Girls

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Uptown Girls
Uptown Girls Promotional Movie Poster
Directed by	Boaz Yakin
Written by	Julia Dahl Mo Ogrodnik Lisa Davidowitz
Release date(s)	2003

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.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 External links

[edit] 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 depletes her estate, 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 in the meantime.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Birthday party

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, whereupon she receives an unexpected rejoinder from Ray, a precocious and dour 8-year-old girl (Dakota Fanning). 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."

[edit] A foxy guy

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 AA 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.)

[edit] Get a job

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. 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.

[edit] Get another job

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 heel 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. 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.

[edit] Moving out

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). She tries to visit Neal, but he ignores the door buzzer. They haven't exactly broken up; he's got her sheets, she's got his jacket.

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.

[edit] Back to work

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"