Search - Nanny McPhee (Widescreen Edition) on DVD

K. K. (GAMER)
Reviewed on 9/7/2024...

Family fun!

Nurit D. from CHAMBERLAIN, SD
Reviewed on 6/23/2013...

Our family loves watching this movie time after time!!

1 of 4 member(s) found this review helpful.

GiGi D. from EL DORADO, KS
Reviewed on 3/15/2013...

I was concerned this would be too similar to Mary Poppins.
But, it was a fun and creative movie.
I really liked it!

1 of 3 member(s) found this review helpful.

Joyce W. (Jwag) from SCOTTVILLE, MI
Reviewed on 11/12/2012...

I would suggest this movie for the entire family. What wonderful lessons are taught, and in an extremely creative way. This is one special nanny. Hmmm...wonder where you can find one like that. The point is, whether you have very obedient children, and a strong family or not, the lessons are there for everybody, including the adults. Try it out and enjoy! You won't be sorry.

1 of 2 member(s) found this review helpful.

What you need is Nanny McPhee

Daniel J. Hamlow | Narita, Japan | 02/16/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"That's what Mr. Cedric Brown (Colin Firth), the widower father of seven children who'd take the team Olympic Gold for mischief-making does. Working at a funeral parlor with two silly assistants, Mr. Jowl and Mr.Wheen (Derek Jacobi), he relies on nannies to look after his offspring, but his childrens' antics are all to drive away the nannies; in the case of Nanny Weston, they make as if they were eating the youngest, an infant.

Mcphee (Emma Thompson) arrives at the Brown resident one stormy night, and her profile silhouetted outside the door reminds me of the shudder one thinks when Alfred Hitchcock's profile is shown on his show. If the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins were thrown together, one would get Nanny McPhee. She's clearly no beauty, as she has two warts on her face, a swollen nose, and a tooth that hangs over her lower lip. She also carries a crooked staff which she taps on the floor in order to conjure magic.

She wastes no time in getting the kids well-behaved, especially in a scene where the children have invaded the kitchen in defiance of their father punishing them. Her way is akin to forcing a PS2 junkie to keep playing games until he either gets bleeding controller blisters or his eyes pop out of his skull. Result, he'll have had enough.

Brown is gratified that her only conditions are that she teach his rambunctious kids five lessons and that she requires Sunday afternoons off. The lessons include saying please and thank you, going to bed on time, getting up on time, and doing what they're told. And mysteriously, when one of the lessons are learned, her warts disappear until...

Brown though is quite ineffectual in enforcing discipline in the household, as he is wishy-washy and too busy at his job. It's clear that the death of his wife, whom he still talks to via the empty chair she used to sit in, is still affecting him. His oldest, Simon says that he doesn't care about or spend time with them like he did when their mother was alive. But he is living off an allowance from his forbidding Aunt Adelaide, and if he doesn't marry by the end of the month, she'll cut him off. The children will be sent to foster homes or put to work in the workhouses. He's desperate enough to choose Selma Quickly, a disreputable and loudmouthed woman whose taste in colours are a garish dayglo fuschia and green, as a prospective new wife. Why not Evangeline, the scullery maid who's learning to read and is concerned about the children?

Three performers from Love Actually are reunited. They are Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, and Thomas Sangster, who played Liam Neeson's son. Thompson provides the film's sole center of stability and rationality, a soothing contrast to the stiff eccentricity of Angela Lansbury's Aunt Adelaide, and Celia Imry's vulgar Quickly.

McPhee's five lessons are values that seem to have been lost on the kids of today's era. In fact, they seem to have more in common with the wild jungle mentality the Brown children have in the beginning. She tells her charges: "When you need me, but do not want me, then I will stay. When you want me, but do not need me, then I have to go." Nanny McPhee effectively joins the ranks of Mary Poppins and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in instilling good manners and values in children.

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A MOVIE FOR EVERYONE

Velma Paetro | 04/14/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I saw this movie 10 minutes ago in a hotel room. Immediately, I go to Amazon.com to see if I can buy it. This is how good the movie is. You want to own it and watch it again and again. The story is good (no doubt, if you have read the book). The director is good. Just love it. Highly recommended."

For the "Kid" in everyone!

Karen Vincent | New Orleans, LA USA | 02/09/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In the past few years, it seems like all of the movies that are safe to take young children to are computer generated animation films full of adult humor. The kids are entertained by the animation - the parents by the adult humor. "Nanny McPhee" thankfully breaks the mold with a sweet story for everyone in the theater. Children identify with the young actors in the film and the story never drags. The six-year old who accompanied me is usually one who loves action cartoons, killing, shooting, etc. When we left the theater he said, "That's the best movie I ever saw!" Thanks, Ms. Thompson, for reminding us about what children SHOULD be watching at the movies!"