I'm In Love With Uptown Girls

I usually can't stand the raspy-voiced Brittany Murphy, but I'm a sucker for Dakota Fanning, so when my mom suggested renting Uptown Girls, I hoped my enjoyment of the latter would outweigh my irritation with the former. Happily, not only was Fanning winning as always, Murphy was perfectly tolerable, and the story that developed around them was both funny and touching.

The titular girls in this Boaz Yakin film are Molly Gunn (Murphy), a 22-year-old free spirit who inherited the fortune of her musician parents after they died in a plane crash when she was eight, and Ray Schleine (Fanning), an uptight eight-year-old who runs through nannies faster than Jane and Michael Banks. Molly's world comes crashing around her for the second time when she discovers that the man in charge of all her money has skipped town and left her practically penniless. Suddenly, the girl who's never worked a day in her life, who's too scatterbrained to keep any of her appointments, whose cluttered abode is littered with candy wrappers and take-out boxes has to figure out how to fend for herself.

Molly scores the nanny gig after a first job attempt goes hopelessly awry. Her cheerful pal Huey (Donald Faison) pulls some strings, and she finds herself in the employ of the acid-tongued eight-year-old. While Molly is clueless about how to be a responsible adult, she's also pretty guileless, and her attempts to connect with her charge are genuine. But Ray, hardened after years of inattentive parenting, is a hard child to reach, and both girls have a lot of learning to do before they will be able to reach a happy medium.

Thrown into the mix are subplots about Molly's friends - the rather shrill and controlling Ingrid (Marley Shelton), whose friendship with Molly is tested when she offers to share her apartment (with strings attached), and Huey, whose affable manner makes him a solid source of comfort - and a romantic interest, an up-and-coming musician by the name of Neal (Jesse Spencer). Having become familiar with Spencer on House, I enjoyed seeing him in the role of a sensitive singer-songwriter, and I must say that I've never seen him quite so cute.

Among the smaller parts in the film are two appearances by Short Circuit alums, and as huge fans of that 80s comedy about a robot who develops a personality, my parents and I thought it likely that the director had been involved in that film in some way. I can't find any evidence to support that, however, so if the inclusion of Austin Pendleton and Fisher Stevens was an homage to Short Circuit, it must have been just because Yakin liked the movie. More likely, it was a coincidence. Also coincidence? The fact that Molly has a pet pig she gives to Ray after Ingrid refuses to house him, making this one of two movies thus far in which Fanning has shared considerable screen time with a porker.

After watching the deleted scenes, my mom observed that had they been included, this film would have been much raunchier. (Unfortunately, an inoffensive scene featuring the adorable Michael Urie as a dog walker was also cut, removing the Ugly Betty co-star from the movie.) As it was, it rarely earned the PG-13 rating; she was inspired to rent it after the recommendation of my uncle, who watched it with his 9- and 11-year-old daughters, and it was perfectly appropriate for them, especially since the bulk of the movie focuses on Molly's relationship with Ray. As a romance, it builds to a sweet conclusion, but the real focus is the way these two girls, in the words of the film's tagline, "teach each other how to act their age," uplifting audiences in the process.