[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Mary Poppins Returns

Set 25 years after the events in Mary Poppins (1964), this is centred around the same house in Robert Stevenson's family favourite and follows the two younger members of the Banks family. Michael, a recently widowed man with three young children, lives close to his sister Jane and both take after their parents, with Jane a social activist and Michael working as a clerk at Fidelity Fiduciary Bank. To cover expenses in the year since his wife died, Michael took a loan out and it is now time to pay up or forfeit the house. Coupled with his grief, this is having an impact on his temper and relationship with his children so maybe a little magical help is required…

The film more or less follows the same formula as the 1964 film, with a family in some disarray and the titular nanny making a surprise appearance which has a transformative effect on everyone around her. There are visits to strange places in London, partly through getting to know someone from the working class, in this case a lamplighter and former apprentice of Bert, and being transported to weird and wonderful words, one of which is animated.

As befitting a film directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago, Nine), the musical numbers are really well integrated into the narrative and look and sound fantastic. In a similar way to Dick van Dyke, Lin-Manuel Miranda (as Jack the lamplighter) really impresses with his vocal delivery and dancing, but the real surprise for me was Emily Blunt holding her own in a role which Julie Andrews (an accomplished and decorated West End and Broadway musical performer at the time) made iconic and won an Academy Award.

What I find very difficult is drawing any comparison between the two Mary Poppins films. The first is nearly 55 years old, I've seen it many times, listened to the songs in isolation as they were on the record we had when I was younger, so it's no surprise the musical numbers and songs in this film are not (yet) as memorable. Whether it will take five decades to really be able to tell whether it is something special or not remains to be seen, but I enjoyed it very much and would happily watch it at the cinema again.