Nanny McPhee Makes a Magical Return
Isabel Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal) needs help. The farmer’s wife is doing everything she can while her husband (Ewan McGregor) is off fighting in the war, even working a second job at Ms. Docherty’s (Maggie Smith) store and forcing her own children Vincent (Oscar Steer), Norman (Asa Butterfield) and Megsie (Lil Woods) to prepare for the arrival of their well-to-do cousins Cyril (Eros Vlahos) and Celia (Rosie Taylor-Ritson) reportedly heading their way to escape Germany’s bombing of London.
Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson) rides in at the ready in Nanny McPhee Returns © Universal Pictures
But the kids don’t get along, creating chaos and wreaking havoc wherever they go. Worse, Isabel’s brother-in-law Phil (Rhys Ifans) is doing everything he can think of to convince her to sell the farm, a pair of smiling debt collector’s named Miss Topsey (Sinead Matthews) and Miss Turvey (Katy Brand) threatening to leave him kidney-less if he doesn’t turn over the deed to the property soon.
What this harried mother needs is a miracle. No. She needs more than that. Isabel needs a savior. Isabel needs Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson).
Four years after her British import became a surprise January hit at the box office, writer, producer and star Thompson brings her Poppins-esque character back to the big screen with Nanny McPhee Returns. Already a minor success across the pond, while this delightful sequel doesn’t hold a candle to the 2006 original it is still an August winner worthy crowing about. It is the kind of family-friendly enterprise children and adults can enjoy with equal ease, the final product both touching my heart and bringing a smile to my face neither of which I want to let go of.
Granted, there is a bit of a been there-done that quality to the picture that takes a little while to get past. It also doesn’t help that the film starts on fairly shaky footing, the opening act so overly frenetic and wild the amplified volume of the kids and their antics started to give me a headache. But once the title character arrives things begin to settle into a pretty amenable – if familiar – groove, and by the time McPhee had taught the youngsters their second lesson I pretty much knew I was going to have a good time.
Television veteran Sussana White (“Lie to Me,” “Generation Kill”) graduates to features with this project, and while she doesn’t quite show as much inventiveness as former handler Kirk Jones (Everybody’s Fine) did on the previous project she still more than gets the job done. She handles the eccentricities of the surreal fairy tale-like narrative with assured confidence, allowing even the youngest actors room to breath and create keeping everything believable and grounded even when piglets fly.
But it is Thompson’s script that makes this sequel special. An Oscar-winner for writing 1995’s Sense and Sensibility, the actress has long shown a gifted ability to tell a well-constructed story. She assumes her audience has both wit and intelligence, believing the even the youngest viewers will be able to comprehend and handle the light and the dark of any given situation with ability and willingness. Better, she ties everything together with lyrical ease, the final moments echoing the first film while also bringing euphoric closure to the Green family’s story.
I’m not going to say it’s a total bed of roses. The subplot involving Phil gets old very quickly, while a romp through the woods with those aforementioned piglets is a tad overly cute for my taste buds. Things slow down during the midsection to the point I saw some fidgety little feet in my preview audience, while a climactic sequence with an unexploded bomb will probably make some parents uncomfortable.
Yet the good far outweighs the bad, and by the time the film was over the theatre even let out in a small smattering of a well-deserved applause. This is the type of sweet, simple and absolutely engaging motion picture they simply don’t make all that often anymore, Nanny McPhee Returns a magically delectable delight whose whimsically malevolent tricks are just as delicious as its creatively crafted treats.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
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