I want to see it again. When will the video come?" was my six-year old's first comment as we headed out into the dazzling sunlight after watching Nanny McPhee.
That usually indicates her heartiest approval of a film just watched. That it is a winner.
I asked my elder, more reticent, 11 year old her opinion as well: "Mary Poppins is livelier in (the film) Mary Poppins. And Mary Poppins is a livelier film. But I liked this film better. Maybe because it is more modern. But how come the warts (moles) keep disappearing (on Nanny McPhee's face)?"
I countered her question with another: "Why do you think they do?"
"Dunno " She pauses in thought for a minute. "Is it her magic? Maybe because she is turning into the mother (the dead mother in the film)?
Nanny McPhee, set in a very green, pastoral England of long ago, is a tale of seven motherless children. The awfully cute three boys and four girls, ranging in age from one to nine, are being brought up by a hapless, scatterbrain father (Colin Firth) who works in a funeral home, and a succession of incapable nannies. Newly-appointed nannies keep departing and the brood gets wilder and wilder.
Interjects my youngest, "The children in Mary Poppins are not so naughty.The children in this movie were the horribl-est. Especially when they were eating the baby." That should give you an idea of how terrible the seven were.
When the 17th nanny leaves, a nanny agency suggests that the father, Mr Brown -- who holds long, despairing conversations with Mrs Brown's favourite crimson velvet chair -- hire the mysterious Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson). She materialises out of a dark night, attired in black, with a bulbous nose, two enormously ugly rubbery-looking moles, a fang and a crooked staff. The film carries on from here in a part-slapstick, part-mysterious vein.
The best moment of the film: "The part when Nanny McPhee is standing at the door and the children are playing in the kitchen (read wrecking the kitchen). When she is banging her stick," says my junior offspring (JO).
Agrees senior offspring (SO): "Yes the part when Nanny McPhee first comes. 'Cause it's spooky. It creeps you. Yes that makes the part nice.
"Another scary part is when they (at the agency) say 'The person you need to see is NANNY MCPHEE!'" says JO.
Nanny McPhee's origins are certainly mysterious and her identity sort of tickles you right through the film. "Maybe the Nanny is the mother. I liked the lullaby in the film. I think the mother sings it," says SO. But where did the Nanny go? "To other children," SO concludes with a that's-so-obvious note.
The best character: JO, "The nanny. She was nice. She was, like, helping the children."
SO: "The second girl. Because she was not so naughty. And she kept noticing things."
JO: "I also liked the boy who was painting the piano with red jam!"
SO: "It was red paint."
The funniest part: "When the other mother (wannabe stepmother) eats worms and the toad comes out of the kettle. And when they threw cake at each other," says JO.
The film's setting is truly beautiful. Colin Firth (who acted in Bridget Jones' Diary I and II) does a good job as the harried, luckless father scouting for nannies and second wives. Emma Thompson plays the secretive, sphinx-ish nanny delightfully. And the kids headed by the eldest Simon (Thomas Sangster) steal the show.
Children will love this film for its mixture of spookiness and fun, as my two did. So don't forget to take yours.
"Four stars," says SO on an 11-year-old's scale where Ice Age II gets three ("Ice Age is boring. This more real!")
Valuable inputs from Kshamaya and Nadisha Daniel
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