It just struck me some studio exec thought "hey, we need the obligatory romance element involved" and crow-bared Chris' character into the mix.
I personally thought he should have been left out, but my wife totally disagrees for some reason.
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Harvard Hottie is a character from the book who shows you how kids raised in the lifestyle Grayer is being brought up in could be decent people. His character is the foil to the X's. That is his purpose.
shareThat sounds a plausable explanation. I haven't read the book.
Perhaps in the book he's a more developed character?
I just thought in the film he only pops up every twenty minutes or so for a pretty cliche love-moment.
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Yes in the book he is a more developed character because the story unravels over a year instead of in one summer like in the book. Unfortunately they couldn't do that in a 1 h45m movie trying to squeeze a lot of plot into a summer. I definitely see your point they could have worked his character in a little more to make it feel a little less superficial.
shareIf you ask me Chris Evans is always needed lol!
shareHAHAHAHA so true
shareYeah, I think they should have left him out. The movie didn't give time for his character to develop and it just seems totally unnecessary - as though a female character couldn't hold her own plot without having some guy in the background. I can't remember the last time I saw a film about a girl achieving her ambitions without screen time being wasted on boyfriends and etc. Single girls can do it too!
shareI'd have to agree that Chris Evans in any movie is NEVER a bad thing...He's one of my favorite actors, along with James Dean, Johnny Depp, Ed Norton, Jason Dohring, Jim Caviezel, and a few others...So I loved that he was in the film!
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I disagree it has nothing to do with the fact that she is a woman and can't hold her own. She isn't rich and has never been in Grayer's spot. Chris was there almost like a future Grayer to show that money doesn't always solve everything and that even with parents and situations like Grayer's, the kid may still turn out good. She couldn't realize that on her own, because she has never been in that spot but Chris has.
shareCanada
I just watched this last night and liked it. I saw SJ in Match Point (and didn't she deserve a better fate in that movie?). ND was a nice fluff piece. The thing I like about SJ in general is that she doesn't have the physical look of a typical blonde Hollywood actress. And hey, after after watching The Fantastic Four 1 & 2, I wouldn't mind seeing Chris Evans in more movies. He may have been the obligatory romantic interest in this movie but he is easy on the eyes, is he not?
One additional note: wasn't HH's presence supposed to at least give Nanny the idea that NOT all children from the Upper East Side raised by nannies grew up to be jerks?
Yes. I'm so with you on that. He was the movie's spice.
shareExcept he wasn't brought up the same way Grayer was because he didn't have a mother staying with a man for his money and neglecting him. His mother was dead and he was raised to be a nice young man through his 9 nannies and didn't have two neglectful parents (i.e. his mother was a sympathetic character for him unlike the pathetic Mrs X). So he wasn't entirely a foil for the X families horrible treatment of their son and snobby ways which would have created a monster who didn't understand love at all.
shareEvans' role was totally pointless and added nothing to the story.
shareI totally agree with you. This subplot was deveoped by an MBA.
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Call me Bubbles, everybody does.
I think he was needed! He represented something that Annie was actually interested in and actually wanted to make time for, but she began to sacrifice along with her friends and her mother all for her job. I think it adds to the realism of the story because all of us in the working world take our jobs seriously but know that in the end our family, friends, and definitely love interest come first!
Once Annie began to see how her job was hurting her relationship with Harvard Hottie is when, I believe, she finally realized she had to put an end to it, even though she was let go. She went through with what she had to do but the stress of everything finally hit a nerve. Earlier on she was fine with barely spending time with Lynette, having basically no communication with her mother, and having hardly any time for herself, but as soon as she started to like Harvard Hottie, it was really a tax on her to put the X family first and miss opportunities to be with him...
I am glad they did end up together at the end though, because it showed that once she followed her heart and did what was in her best interests instead of sacrificing everyone else, she was rewarded with the things she wanted most. I thought that was the perfect touch to the story and cetainly helped the viewer feel what was going on, cuz I'm pretty sure we ALL would choose to be with Chris Evans over becoming a slave to the upper east side!!!
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i agree. His bland good looks and behavior "Hey, look at me. I'm a confident self-loving jock" got on my nerves. I don't think a romance was needed at all or they should have picked a less generic dull jock type and instead a guy with more character that suit Scarlett.
shareluitinto and mariondowning both have the correct insights to the film version of ND (the contents of the book are not relevant here any more than the contents of the film would be relevant to a book club discussion of the written version.)
He wasn't a positive example of how Grayer might develop, in fact future Grayer was more likely to become like his high school snob friends Lynette and Annie met at the bar.
I found him to be an entitled jerk who only had a physical attraction to Annie and would drop her once she chose to study for her Masters in Anthropology, as she did her job in Nantucket over his "Richie Rich" place in the Hamptons, because he's a wealthy playboy who really didn't need his law degree and therefore would have no empathy or understanding of her choices.
He was only slightly better as a character than either of the Xs (sorry to all the younger female posters swooning over Chris Evans).
[I found him to be an entitled jerk who only had a physical attraction to Annie and would drop her once she chose to study for her Masters in Anthropology, as she did her job in Nantucket over his "Richie Rich" place in the Hamptons, because he's a wealthy playboy who really didn't need his law degree and therefore would have no empathy or understanding of her choices. ]
That is what she thought of him, at first. He, of course, was still with her, months later.
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