Nanny McPhee Returns: movie review
In 'Nanny McPhee Returns,' Emma Thompson reprises her kid-wrangling role in WWII England.
From left, Lil Woods, Asa Butterfield, Oscar Steer and Emma Thompson are shown in a scene from 'Nanny McPhee Returns.'
Liam Daniel/Universal Pictures/AP
At a time when most of the new movies seem more intent on swallowing you than entertaining you, the quaint comforts of 鈥�Nanny McPhee Returns鈥� seem downright restorative.
Emma Thompson, who also wrote the film, as she did 2005鈥檚 鈥�Nanny McPhee,鈥� once again radiates magisterial fustiness as the no-nonsense nanny who doesn鈥檛 suffer fools at all. In the first film, set in Victorian England, she wrangled 鈥� with the help of some spiffy magic 鈥� a brood of motherless kids. In the sequel, she鈥檚 dealing with a brood whose father is off fighting World War II.
It all amounts to the same thing. The trouble that children get into doesn鈥檛 change much from era to era. She鈥檚 seen it all before.
She鈥檚 not weary, though. Nanny McPhee is on a mission to teach the children of the world her five basic life lessons 鈥� topping the list is 鈥渢o stop fighting鈥� and 鈥渢o share nicely鈥� 鈥� and it is a point of pride with her that she succeed. As the children shape up, her warty, cronish, snaggle-toothed features gradually coalesce into a radiant prettiness. (In the end she looks like, well, Emma Thompson.) The children鈥檚 new-found inner goodness is all of a piece with her newfound outer beauty.
Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Isabel Green, who is left alone to tend not only her three cantankerous children 鈥� 11-year-old Norman (Asa Butterfield), Megsie (Lil Woods), and Vincent (Oscar Steer) 鈥� but also her sister鈥檚 snooty prigs Cyril (Eros Vlahos) and Celia (Rosie Taylor-Ritson), who have been shunted to Isabel鈥檚 farm from London to avoid the Blitz.
This country vs. city comedy is laid on pretty thick 鈥� the word 鈥減oo鈥� crops up quite a bit in the early going, as do liberal amounts of actual poo 鈥� but the child actors are so funny that even the stalest jokes seem fresh. Vlahos, in particular, looking like a preteen Charles Laughton, seems to the manor born. It鈥檚 a shame he has to learn how to 鈥渟hare nicely.鈥�
English comedy would be lost without its eccentrics, and 鈥淣anny McPhee Returns,鈥� smoothly directed by Susanna White, has its fair share. As Isabel鈥檚 brother-in-law, Rhys Ifans is a wriggling, oleaginous con man who succeeds only in conning himself.
Although the film is derived from the 鈥淣urse Matilda鈥� children鈥檚 book series by 海角大神na Brand, the outsized humor is occasionally closer to Dickens in his more frolicsome moments.
Maggie Smith, as a sweet-souled dodderer, ought to have been given more screen time, but whenever she鈥檚 around, the film really takes flight. (She has a wonderful moonstruck moment when she finds herself buried waist-deep in a mound of flour with no real idea how she got that way.) That old show-biz clich茅 is true: It鈥檚 not the size of the role that counts, it鈥檚 the size of the actor.
Gyllenhaal does a creditable English accent and manages to spend most of the movie in a state of high agitation without becoming a bore. Plus, she really does seem like the mother of her brood. (This is not as common as you would think in the movies.) Ewan McGregor has a too-brief cameo as the father returned from the war. One would like to see what he would have made of Nanny McPhee.
Next to her, the Blitz is about as intimidating as a wet firecracker.
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