Movie Review: Mary Poppins Returns
4.0/5
The Mary Poppins sequel takes place twenty years after the events of the original. 1930s London was undergoing depression, what with many families going bankrupt and losing their homes. One such family is the Banks family. Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw) and his sister Jane (Emily Mortimer), the children whom Mary Poppins mentored twenty years ago, are now adults. Michael has three children -- Annabel (Pixie Davies), John (Nathanael Saleh), and Georgie (Joel Dawson) of his own. His wife has passed away and he hasn’t come to terms with her death. He has to work part-time in the same bank in which his father worked as he can’t sustain the family on his income as a painter. Michael gets to know that the bank would take away his house unless he pays back his loan. He and Jane remember that their father had bought shares in the bank but can’t find any documented proof. At this point, their former nanny Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt), returns in their lives, takes care of the children and magically solves their issues with a little help from Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda), a lamplighter. She not only takes care of their problems but imparts some valuable life-lessons as well in the process.
Disney has also made a film called Saving Mr Banks (2013), period drama about the making of Mary Poppins, which starred Emma Thompson as author P. L. Travers and Tom Hanks as Walt Disney. The author was vastly apprehensive of the adaptation and Disney had a tough time convincing her to accept the changes. Perhaps the memory of those times is still fresh, as the sequel is thematically faithful to the original in every aspect. Even the animation sequence it employs reminds you of the hand-drawn style perfected by Disney during the ’60s. The sequence does give a huge nostalgic boost to the film and adds to its overall charm. Mary Poppins Returns is also a musical and while it doesn’t match the evergreen quality of the numbers created by brothers Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman from the original -- it’s indeed hard to come up with another Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious -- composer Marc Shaiman, alongwith lyricist Scott Wittman have done a good enough job. The songs are fresh and frothy and lend themselves to dance, which is their main purpose in a musical really. The royal doulton music hall, Trip a little light fantastic and Turning turtle are some of the numbers that are choreographed rather well.
Can Emily Blunt ever do anything erroneous? She’s just right as Mary Poppins and takes care not to ape Julie Andrews, filling the character with her own set of idiosyncrasies. Her accent is impeccable and so is her singing as she hardly ever gets a note wrong. She’s spot on in her comic timing as well, doing more with a wink and nudge than others do with reams of dialogue. Lin-Manuel Miranda to is perfect as the good-heated Jack. The film has cameos by Meryl Streep, who appears as Mary’s eccentric cousin Topsy, who specialises in mending things and by Dick Van Dyke, who appears as Mr. Dawes Jr., the chairman of Fidelity Fiduciary Bank and dances a hearty jig even at age 93. There are other special appearances as well, serving as fodder for star spotters.
All-in-all, Mary Poppins Returns is as much fun as a complete family film as the original. For dedicated fans who have seen the original it will serve as a sweet add-on. Newer fans will get the incentive to go back to the original and get to experience a legacy film much loved by their parents and grandparents...
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