Not suitable under 7; parental guidance to 12 (language, sexual references)
This topic contains:
Children under 7 | Not suitable due to language and sexual references. May also lack interest. |
Children aged 7–12 | Parental guidance guidance recommended due to language and sexual references. |
Children aged 13 and over | Ok for this age group. |
This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.
Name of movie: | Maid in Manhattan |
Classification: | PG |
Consumer advice lines: | Low level coarse language, sexual references |
Length: | 105 minutes |
This review of the movie contains the following information:
It’s an important day at school for young Ty Ventura who has to give a speech he’s been working on all summer. His single Mum Marisa promises to be there to hear it and hopes Dad Marcus will be there too. Marisa then heads to work at an exclusive New York hotel where she works as a maid. On that day, Chris Marshall who is running for the Senate arrives at the hotel with his dog Rufus, as well as an English socialite named Caroline Marshall.
Marisa just makes it to school just in time to hear Ty give his speech but the father isn’t able to make it. Ty fumbles through the speech which causes much laughter from his peers.
The following day Marisa is cleaning Caroline’s room when her friend persuades her to try on a $5000 outfit. Meanwhile Ty befriends Rufus and Chris Marshall and goes up to ask his Mum if he can take the dog for a walk. Chris walks in the room and sees Marisa in the outfit and presumes she’s a guest. He is quite smitten by her and asks her to come for the walk too. Marisa goes along with the masquerade and introduces herself as Caroline. They continue to see each other and fall in love. Chris and Ty also develop a friendship in which Ty sees Chris as a father figure. Eventually the real Caroline realises what is happening and exposes Marisa as the maid. It is then up to Chris to decide whether he loves Marisa for the social position he thought she had or for the person she really is.
Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.
Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.
Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.
Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.
There are some sexual references including:
There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:
There is some use of substances in this movie, including:
There is infrequent use of coarse language which includes the following words:
Maid in Manhattan is a light and entertaining ‘rags to riches’ movie which could be enjoyed by adults. The acting is good and, although there is not much depth to the storyline, it does address issues such as the disadvantage suffered by those in lower socio-economic groups. There is nothing scary or violent in this film to concern parents of young children, however children under 7 are likely to find the film boring and it is not recommended due to the language and sexual references.
The take home message in this film is that a person’s character is more important than his or her background and that people shouldn’t be judged according to their social status.
Values that parents may wish to encourage include:
Values parents may wish to discourage include:
Tip: Leave out the first A, An or The
Selecting an age will provide a list of movies with content suitable for this age group. Children may also enjoy movies selected via a lower age.
Content is age appropriate for children this age
Some content may not be appropriate for children this age. Parental guidance recommended
Content is not age appropriate for children this age
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