Uptown Girls

This is a painfully bad, dreary star vehicle for offbeat actress Brittany Murphy that tries to draw deep psychological drama and big tears from a brain-dead plot. Murphy plays the orphaned daughter of a rock star. She loses all her money and opts to become a bratty child’s (Dakota Fanning) nanny. Director Boaz Yakin seems clueless as to what type of film he is making, and the results are a schizoid mess. Murphy is a likeable actress, but this sort of stuff is more suited to the Bullocks and Ryans. Fanning is just plain scary and needs to have her overwrought emotions reeled in. A good contender for the year’s worst film, the stuff is cringe-worthy.