If there’s a cliche about self-obsessed upper class New Yorkers that The Nanny Diaries fails to indulge, it’s not for want of trying. Based on the 2002 best seller by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, who distilled their experiences working with 30 different families in Manhattan’s ritzy Upper East Side into a single storyline, The Nanny Diaries stars Scarlett Johansson as Annie, a Jersey girl who graduates from college with a major in finance and a minor in anthropology. Steered toward a lucrative career in the former but yearning to devote herself to the latter, she decides to take time off between college and career with a well-paid job as nanny to the five-year-old son of a successful couple. Referred to only as Mr. and Mrs. X (presumably to give readers of the book a gossipy frisson), the mother (Laura Linney) is a vain, shopaholic control freak who is too busy with trendy causes to spend any time with her son. Mr. X (Paul Giamatti) is a vaguely defined executive who cares more for his job and office affairs than his family. I don’t doubt that any given incident here may well have been witnessed by the authors. Piling so many of them into two characters, though, creates ridiculous stereotypes that might work in a broad comedy but not as a quasi-realistic film. After years on the back burner, I would guess that this film finally got made on the strength of the success of The Devil Wears Prada. But Meryl Streep’s performance raised that character from a pile of easy clichés into a believably monstrous character. Nanny Diaries exists simply to give you an excuse to feel superior to rich people, though its less wealthy characters don’t come off much better—Annie’s friend Lynette, played by a miscast Alicia Keyes, is equally snobbish as a SoHo resident who whines about being dragged above 14th Street, where none of the guys have any tattoos or piercings. It’s especially sad to realize that this embarrassment was written and directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, who certainly showed themselves capable of better with the Oscar-nominated adaptation of Harvey Pekar’s American Splendour.

The name of Hector Lavoe may not mean much if you’re not a fan of Latin music, but he was an integral part of the salsa movement that began in the early 1970s. El Cantante (“The Singer”) is his story, from his emigration from Puerto Rico to New York in 1963 to his death in 1993. Salsa fans have not taken kindly to the film, the first release from Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions: They feel that it slights Lavoe’s artistic talents to dwell on the more lurid aspects of his life, particularly his drug addiction and troubled marriage. Sadly, it won’t do much for those looking to explore this style of music, either: The musical performances are undeniably exciting, but seldom presented intact in such a way that the viewer can really get into them. The singer Marc Antony, a.k.a. the producer’s husband, stars as Lavoe. I can’t say how well he channels Lavoe, though on their own merits his salsa numers are terrific. In the non-singing scenes, though, his acting talents, such as they may be, are not greatly taxed; he’s seldom asked to do much more than glare sulkily. The acting meat has been reserved for Lopez, who stars as Lavoe’s wife. Her version of her late husband’s story has been called into dispute by many who knew the scene: At the very least, it’s hard to see why the movie should focus on her other than to give J-Lo a vehicle. The director is Cuban-born filmmaker Leon Ichaso, who certainly knows the territory but, as in his previous biopic Pinero, fails to make it very accessible to those who aren’t already in the know.