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Jennifer Lopez, Frances Conroy, Christopher Eigeman, Ralph Fiennes, Bob Hoskins ... see more see more... , Priscilla Lopez , Marissa Matrone , Tyler Garcia Posey , Natasha Richardson , Amy Sedaris , Stanley Tucci , Ray Aranha , Maddie Corman , Larry Fleischman , Mirjana Jokovic , Saundra McClain , Tom O'Rourke , Larry Pine , Minna Rose , Hillary Bailey Smith , Millie Tirelli , Joseph Siravo , Lisa Roberts Gillan , Joel Garland , Becky Veduccio , Daniella Van Graas , Bill Edwards , Nick Wyman , Jayne Houdyshell , Eric Michael Gillett , Shaun Powell , Jay Edwards , Gayle Scott , Richard E. Hirschfield , Gilbert Williams , Crystal Allen , Patrick Ryan Anderson , Brigitte Barnett , Beth Dodye Bass , Anthony Caforio , Gloria Colonnello , Di Quon , Jeffrey Dinowitz , Carla Duren , Mark Fairchild , Lou Ferguson , Emily Frances , Kenneth Goodstein , Sylvia Gottlieb , Amber Gristak , Margaret Harth , Catherine Anne Hayes , Jeff Hephner , Rachel Hollingsworth , Donna Karger , Richie Karron , Stephanie Langhoff , Patricia Lavery , Glenn Lewis , Tobias Maendel , Seth William Meier , Paul Messina , Mike Morris , Maja Niles , Lizza Oliver , Annika Pergament , Javier Picayo , Cole Razzano , Amy Redford , Dave Rosenberg , Bethann Schebece , Raquel Shapiro , Kae Shimizu , Thomas M. Sullivan , Emma Thaler , Daniel A. Thomas , Liliane Thomas , Marilyn Torres , Michelle Vicidomini-Serdaros , Ton Voogt , Sharon Wilkins , Rufus Thomas , Michelle Thomas , Chris Eigeman , Tyler Posey

Can a wealthy Republican politician find happiness with a chambermaid from the Bronx? One man is about to find out, though he hardly realizes it at first, in this romantic comedy from director Wayne W... read more read more...ang. Marisa Ventura (Jennifer Lopez) is a single mother who is raising her gifted but under-confident son Ty (Tyler Garcia Posey) on her own, with some help from her mother Veronica (Priscilla Lopez), after divorcing her husband. Marisa works as a housekeeper at the exclusive Beresford Hotel in Manhattan, where her boss Paula Burns (Frances Conroy) and chief butler Lionel Bloch (Bob Hoskins) urge Marisa and her best friend and fellow maid Stephanie (Marissa Matrone) to be as efficient and inconspicuous as possible. One day, while cleaning the room of noted socialite Caroline Lane (Natasha Richardson), Stephanie spies a beautiful designer gown and dares Marisa to try it on; against her better judgment, she does, and while all dolled up, she bumps into Christopher Marshall (Ralph Fiennes), a wealthy and well-bred bachelor who is running for the Senate. Immediately charmed, Chris asks Marisa to join him for a walk in Central Park, assuming she's the blue-blooded Caroline. Marisa manages to join Chris for the afternoon, with Ty in tow, and Chris finds himself quite taken with Marisa's beauty and down-to-earth personality, as well as Ty's precocious interest in politics. Chris later calls Caroline's room to set up a lunch date, but soon discovers the stuffy Ms. Lane is not the woman he met before. Marisa is also attracted to Chris, but while her friends encourage her to pursue a romance, Veronica believes her daughter is asking for trouble by trying to win a man so far out of her social strata. The supporting cast also includes Stanley Tucci and Amy Sedaris. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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53% liked it

443,158 ratings

Critics

39% liked it

145 critics

PG-13, 1 hr. 45 min.

Directed by: Wayne Wang

Release Date: December 13, 2002

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DVD Release Date: March 25, 2003

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Flixster Reviews (15,854)

  • Deano78
    August 5, 2011
    Deano78
    An ok Rom-Com with a good cast line up. The story is about love crossing a social, class divide. It's very similar in ways to Pretty Woman and more so Notting Hill....with a touch of Cinderella. Far from original, but quite watchable, there are far worse ones out there!
  • moonrivers
    June 29, 2011
    moonrivers
    Supported by the obligatory folk rock music tracks, the Cinderella story as a comedy of errors in New York City. A fantasy, sure (that's the point, isn't it?), but a warm and winning one. Marissa Matrone, Bob Hoskins, Natasha Richardson and the unstoppable Stanley Tucci ably fi... read morell out the backstory as supporting cast.
  • murphmann93
    June 23, 2011
    murphmann93
    I really enjoyed this. Jennifer Lopez at her best and it's got quite a good storyline. A must see!
  • groaningbitch
    March 20, 2011
    groaningbitch
    what is star magnitude? that is stars who are charming enough to make you buy into extremely unrealistic scenario. yeah, the premise of this story is super-fake. woman of humble upbringing and lower social status gets courted by the rich, handsome aristocrat just because there's ... read moresomething so special about her essence that drives a man of much higher social status into a slave for her love. cinderella story told again and again, in movies like sabrina, love in the afternoon (done with sneering cynicism), pretty woman...etc. now the golden man is even more upleveled with an anglican air since it's ralph fiennes who is definitely more suave and has much more class than the 90s richard gere who was famous for his motor-butt in "american giglo" (ha). meanwhile, the woman of humble origin is latino jennifer lopez, who could look classy and sexy like a hispanic princess. now racial difference even deepens the gap of classes. this movie definitely contains lots of ideological poisons aiming for the proletariat female audience. it's like a statement to say all women want the elite white man with class and good looks, whether it's julia roberts' naive whore or jennifer lopez's dignified hispanic maid. as long as you keep yourself well-groomed and you've got a personality and a touch of class, you may transcend the limits of your class or your race, then you win the lottery- the love of a sweet gentleman who isn't so snobbish about your humble origin.

    casting anglican natasha richardson (liam neeson's late wife) as the nymphmaniac rich socialite is a deliberate choice to uglify upper-class woman by portraying them as dim-witted, virtueless, man-hungry and desperate. both richardson and finness are english, and it's like saying we american women or we hispanic american women, are far more attractive so your elite english man prefers us. okay, i just wanna point this out since i find that arrangement of plots un-fair in its portrait of certain social group.

    so back to what i'm saying in the beggining, star charisma makes you buy into every unrealistic crap. yeah, this is the case. i actually stayed on my couch and didn't change the channel and watched the whole thing in a pleasant mood. yeah, i'm common. i also anticipate myself to see jennifer lopez appear in one or two really ravishingly elegant gowns, amazed at her crevice and her curvy shapes and her winsome smile. same for ralph fiennes, who seems to be so irrestibly handsome in this movie as cary grant was in those good old days that you would just buy into anything this man tries to sell. (cary grant was also in quite many chic-flicks)..i'm wondering why this movie's irrealistic scenario didn't annoy me just because i'm a sucker for good-looking movie-stars? but i don't like every movie from ralph fienness or jennifer lopez just because of their looks...somehow i figure out the reason why, because their emotions in those actings are genuine under an impossible circumstances, like they're a bunch of dreamers put in a disneyland where they wish to live, yeah, disneyland is counterfeit, but the people in it are real. their sorrows, joys and pities are real, and sometimes you just take mercy at their plights and wish to grant them a chance to visit the disneyland even just for a while. for instance, the scene where jennifer lopez rants her hardship in life being a single mom and a latino woman who wants to feel how it's like to date a white prince charming like fieness, and her ambition to escape from the labour works and evolve herself into the managerment job. her emotions are real and her depictions of hispanic women have a slight truth in it.

    but the biggest irony for this type of movies is, the director always casts genteel-looking woman in the role of proletariat woman. audrey hepburn didn't look like a cleaning woman or a petite chauffeur's daughter, right? julia roberts didn't really look like a whore in pretty woman. and the only thing working-class about jennifer lopez may be the fact she's latino just because latinos take lots of works involved with physical labours. come on, see the way she looks in that dress, it's no maid, maid won't have time to work out in the gym to have an ass like that. when it comes to that, why won't prole women protest? it's like those big movie-stars rip off their identity to cash in big money. or they're just busy indulging in the movie's beautified portrait of them?....i guess we all need lies to live on.
  • SirPant
    September 24, 2009
    SirPant
    I saw it on an Aeroplane, otherwise I would have left!
  • matertenebraum
    August 8, 2009
    matertenebraum
    Was Jennifer Lopez going through an "I want to be Julia Roberts" phase in 2002? That was the year in which she made "Enough", a shameless rip-off of "Sleeping with the Enemy" and followed it up with "Maid in Manhattan", which bears a certain resemblance to another Roberts film, "... read morePretty Woman".

    Like "Pretty Woman", this is a romantic comedy based upon a "poor girl loves rich man" storyline. The poor girl is Marisa Ventura, a divorcée with a ten-year-old son working as a maid in a smart Manhattan hotel. The rich man is Christopher Marshall, scion of a wealthy family and senatorial candidate staying as a guest in the hotel. Chris is, unexpectedly, a Republican, a detail presumably inserted in a bid to dispel those persistent rumours that Hollywood's main function is to act as the Democratic Party's amen corner. The two meet and are attracted to one another, but, owing to a misunderstanding, Chris believes that Marisa is Caroline Lane, a wealthy British socialite who is another guest at the hotel. Chris invites "Caroline Lane" to lunch, but he is confused when the real Caroline shows up instead of Marisa. Further complications ensue, including the real Caroline taking a fancy to Chris and Marisa losing her job, but this being a rom-com we know that true love will prevail in the end.

    Jennifer Lopez has some dreadful films on her CV, especially the badly-written, badly-acted and thoroughly nasty "Enough", and the hilariously bad "Anaconda", a sort of fifties monster movie resurrected for the nineties. (I must admit I have never seen "Gigli", widely quoted as being the nadir of her career; if it is worse than either of those films it must be bad indeed). "Maid in Manhattan", however, is one of her better performances, not least because she enunciates all her lines clearly, something which is not always the case with her, and makes Marisa- hard-working, determined and caring- a very likable heroine.

    Rather surprisingly, Ralph Fiennes, who is often at his best playing villainous characters as in "Schindler's List" or "The Duchess", makes an equally likable hero. The rather reserved Chris seems more like an English gentleman than an American politician; there is perhaps a hint that his desire for a seat in the Senate owes more to family tradition than to ideological commitment; both his father and grandfather were Senators before him. The real political animal is his frantically hyperactive spin doctor Jerry (played by Stanley Tucci, who had played a rather similar role the previous year in "America's Sweethearts"). There is an amusing, if somewhat one-dimensional, contribution from Natasha Richardson as the spoilt, bitchy Caroline. The acting honours were stolen, however, by young Tyler Posey, utterly delightful as Marisa's son Ty who plays a key role in bringing his mother and Chris together. Ty is a budding intellectual who has become something of an expert on the 1970s, especially the presidency of Richard Nixon.

    I don't think that "Maid in Manhattan" is as good as "Pretty Woman", which had rather more in the way of character development and psychological depth. Garry Marshall's film gained a bit of extra edge by making its heroine a prostitute and its hero a businessman suffering a crisis of conscience about his less-than-ethical business methods. Marisa and Chris, by comparison, are just a bit too nice right from the beginning. Yet the film, as a whole, is an enjoyable one, if not a particularly original one. Besides "Pretty Woman" it also owes a debt to the Audrey Hepburn/Humphrey Bogart "Sabrina" and to countless other films, plays, novels and stories all the way back to "Cinderella" and beyond. Yet this lack of originality does not necessarily matter in a romantic comedy; the genre, after all, is a highly formulaic one which relies upon a few well-worn plots. What matters is the way in which the basic idea is developed, and "Maid in Manhattan" handles its theme with wit and humour. It's not exactly a realistic film either, but then rom-coms were never intended to be exercises in realism. It will provide enjoyable viewing for anyone looking for something romantic and escapist.
  • MissMorganLeee
    July 6, 2009
    MissMorganLeee
    just shows the versitility of my love Ralph Fiennes!! Not that great of a movie tho...predictable...I havent seen it for a long time tho...I should watch it soon. :I
  • 76Majikat
    December 9, 2008
    76Majikat
    A rags to riches romance, that was not unlike the Hugh Grant/Martine McCucheon storyline in ?Love Actually?.

    Sweet and watchable, but one to watch when it appears on tv, not worth renting or buying.
  • deano
    August 3, 2008
    deano
    This story has no surprises, but it's pleasing that Jennifer Lopez has quit her wind-up doll routine and put personality back on screen. Ralph Fiennes is slumming but his Englishness reduces the cheese. The support cast is fun.
  • DragonEyeMorrison
    January 7, 2008
    DragonEyeMorrison
    Like a mexican telenovela.

View All Maid in Manhattan Reviews

Critic Reviews

Charles Passy
March 22, 2003
Charles Passy, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Instead of a fairy tale, we have a tale told without imagination. It's Cinderella gone stale. Full Review

Richard Schickel
January 13, 2003
Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine

Not so much a movie as a collection of career moves. Full Review

Laura Sinagra
December 17, 2002
Laura Sinagra, Village Voice

Problem is, there really isn't any dialogue here that suggests that Marisa is truly sassy, or charming, or candid, or that the would-be senator is either brilliant or senatorial, or that her accent-le... Full Review

Richard Roeper
December 16, 2002
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper

It's a charming romantic fantasy. Full Review

Ty Burr
December 13, 2002
Ty Burr, Boston Globe

A lovably old-school Hollywood confection. Full Review

Michael O'Sullivan
December 13, 2002
Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post

Little more than a bedtime story for 12-year-old girls. Full Review

Ann Hornaday
December 13, 2002
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

It's a warm, if pallid, romantic comedy that may not do much more to burnish Lopez's reputation, but will certainly not bruise it.

Mick LaSalle
December 13, 2002
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

The movie would almost qualify as pleasant, were it not for a certain condescension in its treatment of working-class life and its offhand assumption that lives not buoyed by riches or aggrandized by ... Full Review

Joe Baltake
December 13, 2002
Joe Baltake, Sacramento Bee

In the affable Maid in Manhattan, Jennifer Lopez's most aggressive and most sincere attempt to take movies by storm, the diva shrewdly surrounds herself with a company of strictly A-list players. Full Review

Carrie Rickey
December 13, 2002
Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer

This sparkling Cinderella tale provides the additional kick of watching the glass slipper crack through the glass ceiling.

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Maid in Manhattan Trivia

  • In which movie did Jennifer Lopez use a guest's fur coat without the guest's permission?  Answer »
  • Jennifer Lopez, Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson all star in which 2002 film?  Answer »
  • In which movie did Jennifer Lopez star as a maid with a mistaken identity?  Answer »
  • In Maid in Manhattan: What was Jennifer Lopez's sons real name?  Answer »
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