Mary Poppins Returns ** (2018, Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ben Whishaw, Emily Mortimer, Julie Walters) – Movie Review

So it turns out that Mary Poppins can turn back time, and that’s what Disney can do too in this out-of-its-time sequel to Mary Poppins. Mary Poppins Returns is, as the title implies, supposed to be a sequel to the 1964 original, but it plays like a remake. The remake proves a pale copy of the original, with similar but much weaker songs, and similar but much weaker sequences, including an animated sequence as before.

It is set in the ‘big slump’, whenever that was, probably the Depression era, in a never never land London that seems more Victorian than Thirties, where they still have the lamplighter coming round singing infuriatingly cheery songs, while grinning inanely but none too convincingly – that is the charm-challenged Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda). He even starts off the movie with singing (Underneath the) Lovely London Sky (music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman). Why is Jack a major character in this story? Mary Poppins Returns gives no clue.

Talking of turning back time, Shaiman and Wittman try to do that with all of their nine songs. They are old-fashioned show tunes, so way out of their time that it hurts. So, unfortunately, they are not good old-fashioned show tunes.

The two Banks kids from the original are now grown up – Jane (Emily Mortimer) and Michael (Ben Whishaw). Michael’s wife has died a year earlier, leaving him and his three children, Anabel, John and Georgie (Pixie Davies, Nathanael Saleh, Joel Dawson) bereft and at a loss. But they are keeping calm and carrying on in best British spirit, with the help of Auntie Jane and cheery housekeeper Ellen (Julie Walters).

Though Whishaw and Mortimer do not look entirely comfortable in a musical, they give very decent performances, bringing a bit of acting stuff to the movie. Whishaw turns out to be able to sing quite sweetly (‘A Conversation’). Theirs are probably the best turns in the movie.

For performers of their calibre, Walters and Colin Firth (evil bank boss) are very slack in admittedly tired stereotype roles, but not as slack as Meryl Streep, who is shockingly and shamefully embarrassing in her one pantomime comedy and song (the terrible ‘Turning Turtle’) scene as Cousin Topsy. You expect her to re-appear in the movie, at least at the finale, but fortunately she is nowhere to be seen again.

David Warner and Jeremy Swift over-act awfully as Admiral Boom and Badger, but then what else could they do with these dreadful roles? Dick Van Dyke (from Mary Poppins) and Angela Lansbury (who was in Bedknobs and Broomsticks) make the briefest possible appearances as bank president Mr Dawes Jr (‘Trip a Little Light Fantastic’ reprise) and Balloon Lady (‘Nowhere To Go But Up’). Couldn’t they have given them more to do?

For no particular reason, the Banks family is visited by nanny McMary Poppins, who just arrives totally unwanted from the sky via umbrella. Who or what is she? Is she a witch or a superhero? She is clearly not the same Mary Poppins who appeared Jane and Michael in Mary Poppins  – that was Julie Andrews, obviously, and this is Emily Blunt. Why hasn’t she re-appeared in the ensuing 30 years? Why didn’t she re-appear when the mother died? Why has she appeared now when she isn’t really wanted or needed? Mary Poppins Returns gives no clue.

In the lame plot, Michael hasn’t kept up his payments on the house they are living in and evil bank boss Colin Firth, Michael’s employer, secretly plots to repossess them while pretending to help them. They have till midnight to find the paperwork that would show they can stay in the house. They are running out of time, but hey, Poppins can turn back time!

When I saw it on the opening day of the refurbished Odeon Leicester Square, London, there was an organ recital beforehand and a round of applause after the movie. Everyone was happy, apparently, except me sitting in my cinema armchair with just one arm (the cinema armchair, not me). I would agree that Mary Poppins Return is harmless, but its sentimentality and fake feeling are difficult to take or accept, and the idea proposed that people are never dead but just somewhere else in The Place Where Lost Things Go is truly wrong.

Mary Poppins Returns was nominated for four Golden Globes but won none. Emily Blunt was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. She is extremely brisk and capable but a shade chilly as an actress, just like her character.

It was nominated for three BAFTA Awards 2019, including Best Costume Design (Sandy Powell), Best Production Design (John Myhre, Gordon Sim) and Best Original Music. The production is indeed beautiful, actually quite glorious. This is good old fashioned work. But it won none.

It is nominated for four Oscars, including Best Original Score, Best Original Song (The Place Where Lost Things Go), Best Costume Design (Sandy Powell), Best Production Design (John Myhre, Gordon Sim). Bette Midler will perform The Place Where Lost Things Go at the Oscar ceremonies on 24 February 2019, with composer-lyricist Marc Shaiman to accompany her on piano.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

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