Nanny McPhee

Behind every lot of disobedient and naughty children is usually a pair of worn-out or troubled parents. And when the parental partnership has been fractured, through death or divorce, the children are often naughtier and the remaining parent wearier – at least it’s like that in the movies.

In the British production, Nanny McPhee, Mr Brown (Colin Firth) has every reason to be worn-out and troubled. His beloved wife has been dead barely a year, his seven children are out of control, he has seen the back of seventeen nannies, and his reluctant benefactor Aunt Alice, threatens to cut off his allowance if he does not marry within the month. Without her money it’s debtor’s prison for him and the workhouse for the children. Did I mention this was a comedy?

Set in late Victorian England, the frenetic colour-scheme and lurid costuming makes Moulin Rouge look monochromatic. Gaudy it most certainly is but it’s an effective way of informing the viewer that this is pure fantasy.

As Mr Brown frantically searches for a new nanny after the sudden departure of nanny number seventeen a peculiar stranger arrives; Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson). A cross between Mary Poppins, Mrs Doubtfire and Shrek, she is a frightful looking creature who recognises dysfunction when she sees it. Warty and mono-browed with a snaggle-tooth and a voluminous nose she is fearsomely ugly. On her arrival she informs a bewildered Mr Brown she has five lessons to teach. What she doesn’t mention is that not all the lessons are for the children.

With her imperturbable demeanour and her magic walking stick she soon has the children on their way to being sorted out and their father on his way to the altar. As the family learns to listen and care for one another her appearance begins to change. Or is it just their perception of her appearance that has changed?

Based on a series of children’s novels from the 1960s, Nanny McPhee was written by Emma Thompson. It’s her second film script after the Oscar-winning Sense and Sensibility. Playing in her mind as she wrote the screenplay was the Norwegian Proverb – “That which is loved is always beautiful.”

Despite its assured happy ending and gorgeous (if wicked) children, Nanny McPhee has more than a dose of gloom. It starts with an empty chair, a pink armchair that once belonged to Mrs Brown. Every evening Mr Brown addresses the chair with his concerns and worries as if his dear wife were still with him. As if that’s not enough death, the unfortunate Mr Brown works as an undertaker – he is also in the habit of addressing the deceased upon whom he is working. But children’s tales and black humour are hardly strangers. Roald Dahl’s characters were frequently orphaned, starving and ill-treated. A happy ending is sweeter when the journey there is bridged with tribulations.

The lessons of Nanny McPhee are fairly simple. The children need to learn obedience, kindness and politeness. Mr Brown needs to learn to listen and be a father to his children. While she uses magic when necessary Nanny McPhee teaches the children to use their intelligence rather than their misbehaviour to communicate. Whenever they revert to their mischief their plans seem to go awry.

While some find the use of magic in fiction and film unsettling there are some points in its favour worth noting. Magic reminds us of possibilities, that what we see around us is not all there is. That there is something beyond us, beyond this world. Magic can show us that we are not the all-knowing, all-understanding creatures that we sometimes think we are.

The dual appearance of Nanny Mc Phee is also interesting. When she is teaching the family what they do not want to hear she is unbearably ugly, but when they see that she is right she has been transformed in their eyes. It is good illustration of how people respond to difficult truths, including the gospel. When it judges us, condemns us, it is unbearably ugly, offensive even, but when we recognise that it is right we finally see its beauty.

Funny, sweet and utterly over-the-top Nanny McPhee may not be in the class of JK Rowling or Roald Dahl but it’s only out by a nose.

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