Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang – 2010 | 109 mins | Comedy | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Nanny McPhee returns for a second outing as the post-Mary Poppins supernatural supernanny in a film that sticks to the successful formula of the original with another batch of unruly children in need of her firm-but-fair approach. Thankfully, it’s a family film devoid of sentimentality and touching on real issues amid the mayhem. Actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson reprises her role of the magical nanny who appears when she’s needed. Based on Christianna Brand’s Nurse Matilda children’s books, the sequel improves on the original but the heart-warming fable lacks that indeterminable bit of magic that makes a true children’s classic.

Set during WWII, Nanny McPhee appears at the door of a harried young mother, Mrs. Isabel Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who is trying to run the family farm while her husband is away at war. But once she’s arrived, Nanny McPhee discovers that Mrs. Green’s troublesome children are fighting a war of their own against two spoiled city cousins who have just been evacuated to avoid the blitz.

Nanny McPhee first dishes out tough love to discipline the quarrelsome kids, but they then realise there is a bigger danger to their tranquil country existence – draft-dodging and scheming Uncle Phil (Rhys Ifan); who is attempting to manipulate Isabel into selling the farm. Relying on everything from a flying motorcycle, tree-climbing and synchronised swimming piglets, a baby elephant and a buttoned-up Whitehall army officer (Ralph Fiennes), Nanny McPhee uses her magic walking stick to bring order to her mischievous charges and help save the farm.