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MARY POPPINS RETURNS
Director: Rob Marshall Cast: Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ben Whishaw, Emily Mortimer, Pixie Davies, Nathanael Saleh, Joel Dawson, Julie Walters, Colin Firth, Meryl Streep, Jeremy Swift, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Dick Van Dyke, Angela Lansbury, David Warner, Jim Norton MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 2:10 Release Date: 12/19/18 |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 18, 2018 Mary Poppins Returns isn't exactly desperate to please. If it were, there'd be at least one reprise of any of the memorable songs from the original film, but there isn't one to be heard here, save for snippets of some within the score's melodies and callbacks in some of the lyrics of the new songs. It's nostalgic, but it isn't simply pandering to the audience's fondness for the original film. The movie panders, to be sure, but that isn't the only thing it does. This sequel, arriving 54 years after its predecessor, tells a different, if familiar, story, and it contains newfangled, if slightly less but still familiar, flights of fancy. It's new enough, one supposes, in ways that are occasionally quite endearing and in other ways that aren't. On the plus side—and, perhaps, most importantly—the filmmakers got the casting of the eponymous, magical nanny right. Emily Blunt takes on the role of Mary Poppins, immortalized in the minds and hearts of generations of children and adults who remember being children by Julie Andrews (who does not appear at all in the sequel, although there's a role near the end that almost seems as if it was included for her). Andrews played the role with impish delight, putting on a stern face for appearance's sake but reveling in the joy of bringing, well, joy to those who needed it. Blunt's interpretation of the character is different enough that we wonder what the nanny might have gone through in the intervening decades to change her attitude so. Her Mary Poppins (The surname must always be included, apparently) is quite severe, except when she's alone. She's neither mean nor cruel, though. The character's sense of humor remains, albeit with a level of rigid deadpan—such that only the people who know her actually can tell that she's joking. The mischievous nature of the character comes through more subtly in Blunt's performance. After being told by one of her young charges that he doesn't like bubble baths, Mary Poppins fills up the tub with magical soap anyway. A song to the children follows, and it's disarming, telling them that logic stands above all else and that imagination is pointless. All the while, she's pulling assorted toys from a seemingly bottomless bag and the drain of the bathroom sink, and at one point, she scolds a dolphin, which suddenly appears in the tub, for jumping its cue. After the kids jump into the tub, though, she settles on the edge and flashes a wide grin, eagerly anticipating the magic that's about to happen. The next sequence is one of several that, like in the original film, take Mary Poppins, her charges, and assorted other characters into magical or slightly unreal realms. The kids, by the way, are the children of the boy from the first film. Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw), a struggling artist and widower, has taken a job at a local bank, like his own father before him, in order to support his children Anabel (Pixie Davies), John (Nathanael Saleh), and Georgie (Joel Dawson) after the death of his wife a year ago. It's the "Great Slump" of the 1930s, and despite the help of his sister Jane (Emily Mortimer) and the family's steady maid Ellen (Julie Walters), Michael needs help—especially after the bank is preparing to take possession of the family home for failure to make payments on a loan. That's when Mary Poppins arrives and, in her own way, volunteers to watch over the three kids while Michael gets his finances sorted. The story here moves between the mostly episodic adventures in various fantastical realms and an actual plot, involving Michael and Janes' attempts to find their father's old shares in the bank, as well as a villainous bank manager (played by Colin Firth) who believes that there's money to be made from the economic struggles of regular people. One of the great charms of the original film is that it had no need or desire for a plot. It felt like a free-for-all—a children's storybook come to life (The characters come from the stories of P.L. Travers) and a full-bore musical, which incorporated the on-screen magic of effects and animation in ways that elevated the material. Unsurprisingly, the best moments in director Rob Marshall's follow-up are the ones that abide by that spirit. The sequences of the shared imaginations of the nanny, the kids, and Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda), a lamplighter who remembers Mary Poppins' previous visit from his childhood, do more than a fine job of reclaiming that sense of creative freedom. They visit a society living under the sea and the hand-painted world on a porcelain bowl (a standout sequence that seamlessly combines animation and physical design elements made to look like cartoon versions of themselves). The songs, while not anywhere near as memorable as the old ones, are enjoyable enough, too. Some of it feels like too much, such as a dance sequence that incorporates bicycle stunts into the choreography. The real "too much" of Mary Poppins Returns, though, is its forced attempt to cram a plot, a villain, and a couple of action sequences into material that, as was proven by its predecessor, absolutely does not need them. In updating the material for modern sensibilities, the sequel goes just a few steps too far. Copyright © 2018 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for some mild thematic elements and brief action)
