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Mary Poppins? In the Brown household, it's more like Hellzapoppin as charmingly flustered widower Mr. Brown (Colin Firth) struggles to control his seven "extremely ill behaved" children. They do not go to bed when they're told. They do not get up when they're told. They do not get dressed when they're told. They say neither "please" nor "thank you." Seventeen nannies have come and gone. But No. 18 -- Nanny McPhee -- is not so easily cowed. Emma Thompson -- who earned an Oscar for adapting Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility (1995) -- again performs double duty here as star and screenwriter, adapting Christianna Brand's Nurse Matilda books with wit and care into a richly satisfying family film. As Nanny McPhee, Thompson makes an unsettling first impression, masking her beauty behind warts, a bulbous nose, a protruding snaggletooth, and a dour mono-brow. She also has a confounding habit of suddenly materializing out of nowhere ("I did knock," she quietly insists). No spoonfuls of sugar for her. She has a walking stick that dispenses some macabre (and later, wondrous) magic whenever she taps it on the ground. With each improvement in the children's behavior, Nanny McPhee's various blemishes disappear. "When you need me but do not want me, then I will stay," she informs her charges. "When you want me but do not need me, then I have to go." Boy, do they need her; not only to become better-behaved children but to foil the nasty Mrs. Quickly, whom Mr. Brown rather reluctantly prepares to marry to ensure that formidable Aunt Adelaide (Angela Lansbury) will continue to financially support the family. Little does Mr. Brown know of his sweet scullery maid Evangeline's (Kelly Macdonald) unrequited love for him, and surely it will "snow in August," the downcast young woman states, before such a fairy-tale romance will come true. Nanny McPhee is not as transcendently supercalifragilisticexpialidocious as Mary Poppins, yet parents seeking a film that can work its considerable magic on the entire household. Donald Liebenson

All Movie Guide

A nanny reveals ways of making children behave that are much more effective than a time-out in this fantasy comedy based on the "Nurse Matilda" books for children by Christianna Brand. Near the dawn of the twentieth century, Mr. Brown (Colin Firth) is a widower who must tend to his business as an undertaker while looking after his brood of seven children. Brown's offspring are a singularly ill-mannered lot who have managed to drive away 17 different nannies when their father arranges for one Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson) to help out with the children. McPhee is an strange looking woman with a large nose, protruding teeth, and pock-marked skin, but it isn't long before the kids realize she has magical powers and isn't afraid to use them to help keep them in line. While the children aren't taken with McPhee's insistence on such things as saying "please" and listening to their elders, it becomes clear everyone has bigger things to worry about. Aunt Adelaide (Angela Lansbury) has insisted that if Mr. Brown cannot find a new wife within a month, she'll take custody of one of the children and cut off Brown's inheritance, and while Brown and the widow Mrs. Quickly (Celia Imrie) seem fond of one another, his ineptitude in courtship seems to insure he'll never get her to the altar. But while the Brown Children realize Nanny McPhee is a formidable opponent, she can also be a valuable ally as they learn to make use of her talents by being better children; they also discover that as they behave better, she begins to look less frightening. Emma Thompson, who played the title role in Nanny McPhee, also wrote the film's screenplay. Mark Deming

Product Details

• UPC: 025192044786
• Source: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby AC-3 Surround Sound
• Editions: Subtitled, Dubbed, Repackaged
• Time: 1:38:00
• Sales Rank: 1,611