Plot: Newly graduated with a degree in Finance with a minor in Anthropology, twenty-one year old New Jerseyan Annie Braddock realizes at the most inopportune of times that she has no idea what she wants to do with her life. Literally stumbling onto it, she learns that there is high demand by the wealthy Upper East Side set for nannies, something she figures she can do in the short term until she decides what to do in the long term. In telling her story, she frames it in the realm of an urban anthropology research project in having pseudonyms for some of the key players. In being able to choose her employers despite not having any experience as a nanny or with children, she goes into the employ of the X's as nanny to their preschool-aged son, Grayer, the stumblee. Annie quickly learns that the X's are not as they initially presented themselves. Mrs. X is not gracious, but rather demanding, controlling and prone to upper class trends which are apt to change as new upper class fads emerge, with their former nanny not quitting as Annie was led to believe but fired by Mrs. X for going on a date. And Grayer is not the sweet child he initially came across as, but, a product of the environment in which he has been raised, is precocious in a bad way. And when she eventually meets him, Annie sees that Mr. X is even less a presence in Grayer's life than Mrs. X, and in his narcissism is a philanderer who treats Mrs. X poorly. As Annie is eventually able to get through to Grayer which makes quitting no longer an option despite the poor working conditions, she has to deal with two additional people, the first her mother who she has not told about the job in her mother's belief and dreams that she is working on Wall Street, and the second a guy she names Harvard Hottie (because of his preppy good looks and he wearing a Harvard sweatshirt in their first encounter), who lives on the twelfth floor of the X's building and with who she is averse to starting a relationship because of the fate of the previous nanny and despite their mutual attraction. The questions become if this experiment/experience will allow her to get a clearer view of what she wants to do with her life, and how the experiment will end as there is, by its very nature, a finite time frame to this job.
Alternative Plot: A college student, Annie Braddock (Scarlett Johansson), with a working-class background takes a nanny job with Mr. and Mrs. X (Paul Giamatti, Laura Linney), an affluent but highly dysfunctional Manhattan couple. She must find a way to manage her studies, a new boyfriend, and the demands of her new employers and their spoiled offspring.
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