"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Friday, March 8, 2019

Mary Poppins Returns (2018, PG)


Another movie I was gladly able to make time for within my Oscar-film schedule (this one did get a nomination – Best Original Song – but it wasn’t on the list for any of my main categories.)  While I recognize the critiques that many have of it, I personally found it to be both enjoyable and charming.

Over the years, the Banks children have grown up.  Michael has been struggling to keep the house running smoothly since the death of his wife, and the financial hardships of the Great Depression make it that much more difficult.  Despite the help he gets from Jane (now a labor organizer) and his three precocious children, what the situation really calls for is Mary Poppins.  She flies back into the Bankses’ lives right when they need her most, looking after the children but really helping the whole family.

The movie takes a page out of The Force Awakens’s book, creating a new story with some new characters but leaning heavily on the nostalgia from its predecessor.  It can easily be argued that most of the movie just riffs on variations of set pieces from the original, and since this is a sequel rather than a reboot, it does have a “cribbing from the glory days” feel to it.  An animated stroll through a china bowl instead of a sidewalk painting, a big dance number with lamplighters instead of chimney sweeps, and so forth.  It can give the film a rehashed feel, which takes away from its anything-is-possible air.

And so, the film often works best for me when it’s focusing on what makes it different from the original.  Michael’s children have their own dynamic with Mary Poppins and with Michael.  Their mother’s death has affected the whole family deeply.  The two older children have grown up quickly and take it upon themselves to look after the household (so they’re not in need of a nanny, thank you very much,) while the youngest is the most willing to believe in Mary Poppins and her magic.  I like the way the effects of grief are woven into the story – in particular, Mary Poppins sings a beautiful lullaby about it called “The Place Where Lost Things Go” (the one that got the Oscar nod, by the way) that comes back in a lovely way later in the film.  I also enjoy seeing how Jane and Michael have rationalized their own childhood experiences with Mary Poppins, chalking it up to games and wild imaginations (how quickly we forget.)

The score is by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, of Hairspray and Smash, and I find it nice but a little forgettable.  While all the songs are enjoyable and have some good lyrics, there aren’t really any immediate standouts.  Also, at some point, I’d got it into my head that I’d heard Lin-Manuel Miranda was writing the score, and so 1) I spent quite a bit of time trying to imagine what Miranda-penned Mary Poppins songs would be like and 2) I couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed when I learned that it was actually Shaiman and Wittman, even though I’ve always liked their work

The cast was my biggest inducement to see the film, and they’re predictably fabulous.  As Mary Poppins, Emily Blunt is prim and just a little frosty but simultaneously warm and magical – i.e., everything she should be.  Miranda is fun and personable as Mary Poppins’s working-class sidekick Jack (his Cockney accent, while not as tragic as Dick Van Dyke’s in the original, definitely continues that tradition of dubiousness.0  Ben Whishaw (an amazing Richard II) and Emilly Mortimer (who I’ll always remember as Nina in Bright Young Things) do lovely work as Michael and Jane, and I was pretty impressed with the young actors playing Michael’s kids.  The film also features Colin Firth and Meryl Streep, plus a terrific cameo from Van Dyke.

Warnings

Thematic elements, scary moments, and a few mildly-suggestive lyrics.

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