With two toddlers and a newborn to ride herd on, stressed-to-the-max mom Marlo (Charlize Theron) accepts her brother’s gift of a night nanny. Diablo Cody’s dialogue still sounds forced, but at least here, the characters don’t speak with one voice the way they did in Juno, the screenwriter’s first pairing with director Jason Reitman. (The two met up again for Young Adult before collaborating here.) Parents whose cinematic raison d’etre is identification with the characters onscreen will no doubt respond to the gobs of observational humor and Theron’s sensational strong-as-an-ox performance. But alas, the titular nursemaid, played by the always-worth-watching Mackenzie Davis, doesn’t appear until almost halfway into the picture. It’s a difficult intrusion to get past, particularly when Marlo’s motivation for inviting Tully into the bedroom is just to remind us of what an irreverent, nasty girl the screenwriter can still be. And fans of well-written male characters will be underwhelmed by Ron Livingston’s woefully underdeveloped hubby. (2000) — Scott Marks
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