a movie review by: Neil Young

Elaborate whimsy is the order of the day in this opulent-looking, frightfully-posh children's fantasy, very loosely based on the Nurse Matilda novels of Christianna Brand (an author best known for old-timey adult-oriented whodunnits like Green For Danger.) The script is by Emma Thompson, who reportedly spent many years trying to bring the project to the screen and herself appears - behind some drastic uglifying prosthetic make-up - as the title-character, a witchily solemn cousin of Mary Poppins.

Her daunting task is to tame the uber-naughty seven children of a recently-widowed undertaker (Colin Firth), the brood residing in a gaudily-coloured rural mansion during what looks like an indeterminate late-Victorian/early-Edwardian period. Raucous shenanigans duly ensue as the kids - led by spirited, self-possessed little Thomas Sangster - realise that the spell-casting Nanny McPhee is a (perhaps literally) world away from the seventeen previous nannies they've managed to drive out.

After a rather shaky start, director Jones (in a belated followup to 1999's lotto-themed comedy Waking Ned) and scriptwriter Thompson hit their stride around halfway mark as Nanny exerts her special skills on the brats. And it's Thompson's eerily calm, intriguingly solemn performance which becomes the quiet core around which the sometimes-rickety enterprise revolves. Her presence steers the picture through some less-than-inspired episodes - Jones would have been well-advised to drop the CGI donkey for example, not to mention the cutesy-cutesy "talking" baby (though both may appeal to the very youngest audience-members.)

On the plus side, Thompson seems to have called in plenty of favours from her thespian pals: an impressive supporting cast includes Angela Lansbury (her first appearance in a theatrical feature since 1984's The Company of Wolves, and seemingly channelling Lady Bracknell as Firth's domineering Aunt Agatha), Derek Jacobi, Patrick Barlow, Imelda Staunton and Celia Imrie... all of them at full tilt or beyond.

Their presence bolsters the general atmosphere of classiness that pervades the entire production, from the alluring cinematography to the audaciously eyepopping production-design, set-decoration and costumes. The persuasively romantic snowstorm-in-August wedding-finale, meanwhile, rounds things off a genuinely magical note - and is commendably economic in its avoidance of cumbersome last-act explanations. As the tykes soon discover, sometimes Nanny does know best.

Colin Firth Photo

Emma Thompson Photo

Angela Lansbury Photograph

Kelly Macdonald Photo