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PRODUCER: |
Tim Bevan (Bridget Jones, Fargo, Love Actually), Lindsay Doran (Senseand Sensibility, The Firm), Eric Fellner (Bridget Jones, Fargo, Love Actually), Debra Hayward (Bridget Jones, Love Actually) |
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Remember when Rebecca De Mornay played the naughty nanny in the movie The Hand that Rocks the Cradle? Well, that actually has nothing to do with Nanny McPhee . . . it’s just fun to think about.
Nanny McPhee takes place in a little English town and is the story of seven out-of-control children being raised by their widower father, Cedric (Colin Firth), who definitely needs the help of a nanny. Unfortunately, the children do not want one. So much so, that they have just scared off their 17th nanny by pretending to eat the baby. Now, with no nannies willing to help with the children, Cedric is desperate. Just before chaos rules the household, a mole covered, cane carrying, creepy looking Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson) appears at their door. She informs Cedric she has five lessons to teach the children and that she will stay as long as they need her but she isn’t wanted and must leave when they want her but she isn’t needed. Cedric has one more huge problem to deal with: unable to financially support his family (he’s a Mortician), Cedric must marry within a month so that Great Aunt Adelaide (Angela Landsbury) will continue to pay for his home or he will loose his house and his children forever. Nanny McPhee uses her special powers to lead the family on a heartening and magical journey where the children are taught life lessons, the nanny reveals her inner beauty and Cedric finds true love where he least expects it.
Nanny McPhee is visually spectacular; and, it tells a simple - yet very intriguing and enjoyable - fairy tale. With the exceptional acting of seven adorable children, this movie is an absolute delight for audiences of all ages. Our only concern would be the choice of profession for the main character. Why would writer Emma Thompson or director Kirk Jones – or even MGM, for that matter – create a wonderful children’s movie and make the father a mortician? The occasional glimpses of him preparing dead bodies are unsettling and out of place. Dead bodies aside, though, Nanny McPhee is a definite masterpiece.
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