Movie Review: Nanny McPhee
Rate This Article
What Parents Should Know
Parents should know that the movie opens on a family of
seven children who take pride in harassing and scaring nannies
hired by their father. The kids are abusive in
Home Alone-ish ways, pulling violent and sometimes
disgusting pranks on adults who are supposed to look after
them. Their efforts to thwart their father's marriage to a
tarty (and cleavage-revealing) widow include the use of
reptiles, insects, and slimy substances. The instructive nanny
looks like a traditional witch, arrives on a stormy night, and
uses a magical cane. Some kids may be disturbed by the death of
the children's mother (not shown). The father works in a
mortuary, and we see shots of dead bodies.
Families can discuss the children's evolving attitude toward their father: how do they come to see themselves supporting him rather than challenging all adults all the time? How does Nanny McPhee's specific sort of magic allow her subjects to figure out their own problems? And how does the father's bumbling lead to the children's taking more responsibility, for each other and him?
Common Sense Media Review
Emma Thompson is delightful as NANNY McPHEE, hired to look
after a family of seven "very clever, but very, very naughty
children." The children's widowed father, Mr. Brown (Colin
Firth) is at his wit's end as the film begins, as his kids have
just run off their 17th nanny. Just in time, Nanny McPhee
arrives on a dark night and promises to set the household
aright.
Thompson, who adapted Sense and Sensibility for the screen in 1995, has devised a wonderful script based on Christianna Brand's Nurse Matilda books, wherein kids and nanny face off without condescending to one another. The warty, snaggle-toothed, bulbous-nosed Nanny McPhee tells Mr. Brown she can manage the kids while maintaining her independence and dignity: "When you need me, but do not want me, I will stay," she says, "When you want me but do not need me, I will go."
Nanny's lessons -- instilled through judicious use of a magic cane and wry common sense -- include respect, loyalty, and generosity. She expects the children, especially chief schemer Simon (Thomas Sangster), to live up to her expectations: they can be kids -- rambunctious, energetic, and silly -- but they must also respect others, including adults.
Or, at least, those adults who do not appear foolish outright. The film has its own obnoxious fun at the expense of Selma Quickly (Celia Imrie), a local widow who favors gaudy outfits, too much makeup, and sexual overtures toward their father. As he can't afford to keep up his home (or to keep the kids with him) without financial help from his harrumphy Great Aunt Adelaide (Angela Lansbury), he's in a pickle when she insists he marry by the end of the month or lose her monthly checks.
The children plot to chase off the widow, not thinking through the long-term effects. Nanny McPhee lets them and their father learn lessons the hard way. Focused on surfaces and immediate gratification, much like his children, Dad doesn't at first understand his own feelings for the pretty and considerate housemaid Evangeline (Kelly Macdonald). His realization occurs during a climactic garden wedding party, such that the family is gathered together and briefly engaged in a colorful cake-throwing fight.
If some of the movie's effects are distractingly shoddy (see: the unconvincing dancing donkey), the kids (especially Sangster) are first-rate, and Thompson rather divine.
Families who like this movie will also like Mary Poppins, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Matilda, as well as the Harry Potter franchise.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
