Less Mary Poppins, more The Addams Family, Nanny McPhee is an all-star panto (Derek Jacobi, Angela Lansbury, Imelda Staunton) of a family film. The plot may be familiar – homehelp brings order to unruly home – but the treatment is as inventive as the anti-nanny shenanigans dreamt up by widower Colin Firth’s seven children.
The young cast, though, are unimpressed with their commentary duties – chomping crisps, begging for loo breaks and declaring, “This is very boring and I don’t think anyone ever listens to these things anyway,” but screenwriter/star Emma Thompson and producer Lindsay Doran have an inviting chat about the page-to-screen process, shedding a tear when watching how the words “And the snow forms a veil” were rendered with CGI.
DVD Extras:
Featurettes focus on the three-acre set built from scratch, the smart, sharp production design and the prosthetic process by which Nanny McPhee is transformed from warty, monobrowed witch to lovely lady as the kids’ behaviour improves.
