Film

Maid in Manhattan (2002)

Director: Wayne Wang

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Talented individuals labour over the contrivances in this lightweight romance, and if the result's fluff, at least it's painless. Lopez comes away best, believable and unaffected as a hotel maid and single mum hesitating over an application for management training. She's caught between ambitions for a better life and a class-conscious confidence gap, and a meeting-cute with handsome Republican gubernatorial candidate Fiennes does little to resolve her dilemma. Thanks to a mix-up over the 'borrowed' designer gear she's wearing, he thinks she's a fellow guest at his swish hotel, when really she should be replacing freebie shampoos. If she lets her real identity slip, would she win his blue-blooded heart? No prizes for guessing how this modern-day Cinderella pans out, since Kevin Wade's screenplay sticks doggedly to the predictable, leaving the entertainment value largely in the incidentals. Wang displays respect for the hotel's lower ranks, even as his good-egg gesture sits uneasily with the plot's emphasis on upward social mobility.

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