Practically perfect

The movie is respectful of kids' intelligence -- and that of adults, too.
By CHRIS HEWITT
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Imaginative and funny, "Nanny McPhee" resembles a Julie Andrews film festival -- without Andrews.
Like "Mary Poppins," the movie's about a magical, no-nonsense British governess, and, like "The Sound of Music," she shows up at the doorstep of a distracted widower to whip his seven naughty children into shape. Based on books published in the mid-'60s, "Nanny McPhee" plays like a loving tribute to those Andrews characters that attempts to make them a little more dangerous. Which is why, unlike gentle Mary Poppins, Nanny McPhee is scarycalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Although Andrews' specter hangs over the movie like the children's guillotine perched over the heads of their dolls, the MVP is Emma Thompson. She wrote it and brings warmth, wisdom and a spoonful of vinegar to her performance in the title role (not that you'll recognize her under the warts and the Mediterranean dockworker unibrow).
Thompson's script is rooted in the belief that all kids are potentially good and that they can usually solve their own problems if someone like Nanny McPhee sends them down the right path with a few skeptical looks and significant "hmmphs."
Is it magic?
"Nanny McPhee" hints at magic -- her walking stick seems to have special powers, and it's suggested she was sent by the children's late mother. But the magic is really a metaphor for aspects of the world that are mysterious to young people, like bedtimes, the behavior of adults or the death of a beloved mother, whose keenly felt absence gives the movie depth and heart.
There's a child's-eye quality to "Nanny McPhee," with its Crayolas-gone-mad color scheme and its matter-of-fact acceptance that plenty of stuff happens for which there is no reasonable explanation.
There is, however, a good explanation for why "Nanny McPhee" will appeal to moviegoers: its "Supernanny"-like belief that teaching children is also about teaching their parents (the closing credits inform us, "This film is dedicated to the truly naughty. And their children."). Whereas most children's films imply that young people only deserve movies that are loud and stupid, this one respects their intelligence and interests. It says that the smallest of us deserve entertainment of the highest order.