PLOT: In a surreal version of Victorian England, a desperate widower with seven naughty children reluctantly agrees to let a bewitched nanny straighten out his bratty brood.
The ad slogan for the charming children's film Nanny McPhee is simple, yet effective: "Behave or Beware!"
Cheeky devils. I love it.
This is the way this genre should operate, with just the right delicious balance of good and evil, of comfort and threat, of light and dark.
In this case, the tone of the movie and its storyline leaves Nanny McPhee poised somewhere between Mary Poppins and a Grimm fairytale.
As written by Emma Thompson, Nanny McPhee is full of vigour, naughty pranks, slightly risque satire and some savvy life lessons for children and their parents. Especially on the question of how to encourage naughty children to behave. The balance means the movie is neither insufferably sappy nor a cynical dismissal of genuine goodness.
Thompson earned an Oscar adapting Jane Austen's classic novel Sense And Sensibility into an Ang Lee film. Her goal, and she succeeded, was to remain true to the source material while still creating a vibrant screen drama.
Nanny McPhee was different. The project is rooted in the three Nurse Matilda books written in the 1960-70s by English author Christianna Brand. Thompson changed the name of the title character, streamlined the family by eliminating most of the children as well as their mother, created a new dilemma and yet still invoked the core stroke of genius in the books: The bewitched nanny.
In the movie version, Nanny McPhee (played with delightful zest by Thompson herself) arrives at the home of a beleaguered widower (Colin Firth, showing his sweet slapstick persona), offering to bring order to a chaotic household overrun by seven very, very, very naughty children.
Angry with their widower father for drifting into a funk after the death of their mother, the seven Brown children are hellions, inventing ever more malicious ways to rid themselves of the nannies hired by Mr. Brown.
This changes with the arrival of unflappable Nanny McPhee. On first blush, she is England's ugliest woman with those warts, the bulbous nose, a hunchback and a snaggle tooth laid out (as Brand wrote) like a tombstone over her lower lip.
But she seems to have magical powers, like a witch. She certainly has an influence, both on Mr. Brown and on the children, not to mention on the alluring scullery maid (Kelly Macdonald) who seems to love Mr. Brown and the kids with an unnatural selflessness for a young woman in service.
Meanwhile, there is an outside threat to the children's welfare, the interference of their rich, imperious benefactor (Angela Lansbury has fun being fussy).
Played with a slightly surreal theatricality and colourfully dressed up like a carnival sideshow, the movie gaily moves from crisis to crisis. Meanwhile, Nanny McPhee teaches the children how to learn their own lessons, a subtle shift from just instructing them on what they should know.
Director Kirk Jones (who created that enchanting 1998 comedy Waking Ned Devine) keeps things percolating on several levels. There are seven sharply drawn children's characters (played by eight terrific kids) and also a romantic subplot plus fun with animals (except for that damned donkey who refused to cooperate). While there are special effects to pump up the magic, the emphasis is always on the story.
Nanny McPhee, the heroine and the movie, grows ever more beautiful as time passes on screen. Kudos to all: This is sophisticated children's fare.
BOTTOM LINE: While fun for any age, this is primarily a children's fairytale in which savvy life lessons are delivered with just the right balance, so it is neither sappy nor cynical.
(This film is rated G)
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