The score's not bad

That was Franny's whispered, mid-movie review of "The Nanny Diaries," which we caught this afternoon at Pacific Place -- all by ourselves since Michelle's in stupid North Carolina and Gina's camping with a friend.

Gina and Franny are obsessed with film scores. They analyze them, collect them and play them on their iPods -- especially those by Danny Elfman -- almost to the exclusion of all other music. And I think that's often their first filter for the films themselves, so when Frank pronounced this one tolerable I figured she'd be able to sit back and enjoy, or not, the rest of the movie.

When it was over we both declared that we liked it quite a bit. It's a nice, light, summer (sorta) romantic (sorta) comedy, not a deep "film." But I appreciated the tight screenplay. Once you start paying attention to screenwriting conventions and "beats," as Michelle has been teaching me to do, it's fun to watch a good one hit all the marks. And with Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti, the acting was predictably excellent.

I didn't read the book so I don't know how it compares, but I give the picture a thumb's up (or, for Michelle's sake, three gliomas).

Here's what a professional critic -- Salon's very good Stephanie Zacharek -- has to say: "'The Nanny Diaries' is an adamantly unterrible picture, a reasonably enjoyable diversion made by filmmakers whose intelligence and judgment are apparent even when they're working from a 'cream puff.'"

Adamantly unterrible, that's what I meant to say.