Mary Poppins Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Sorry to say I absolutely hated this. Plenty of small things disappoint, but foundationally it’s got something really iffy at its heart – especially after everything about charity and family that the original stood for. It fundamentally betrays the ideology, the poetry, and the cinematic inventiveness of the original. It’s hateful.
Before I begin, I’m patently wrong. Whether children wowed by their first cinema trip or grandparents reminiscing theirs, the world loves this film. Whatever I think, the joy it’s bringing has to be celebrated.
But IT’S sh*t the writing is bad, the direction worse, the subtext offensive, the moral hideous, and the ending ruins the first movie.
***
Other than that…
It’s only right to begin with the good aspects (there are so many bad I’ve had to delegate them into this pretentious structure):
• Emily Mortimer and Lin-Manuel are fun.
• Dick van Dyke is joy incarnate.
• Costumes are pretty.
• There are 2 ¼ good songs.
That’s it; now the negatives.
There are 2 ¼ good songs
The Shermans, like fellow Americans Lerner & Loewe, got London 1910 – “King Edward’s on the throne, it’s the age of men” – spot on. “Step in Time” is “Knees Up Mother Brown”, Flanagan and Allen influence “Jolly ‘oliday”, Banks’ maid Elsa Lanchester could have sung “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”. But amidst the Pearly Kings, the Shermans take very surprising detours. In the middle-eight of an arpeggio-led lullaby, “Feed the Birds” overlays almost a Gregorian chant – not something English, but subconsciously evoking morality. “Chim-Cheree”’s chromatic base and minor-key bounce evoke (yet predate) Michel Legrand’s haunting chansons for Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, mysterious, foreign, romantic. It’s a complex musical picture they paint.
To make a Poppins score, original musical adventurousness matters. When Stiles & Drew gave “Being Mrs Banks” its yearning insight or “Brimstone and Treacle” its villainy, they judged this nicely.
Shaiman & Wittman didn’t. Song for song, every note they write has a precedent in the original. The London opener is the London opener (but twee, not mysterious); the magic intro is the magic intro (but fake-looking); the lullaby is a lullaby (with none of the wit). Admittedly “Turning Turtle”’s Slavic, but it’s another s-word and, really, another ‘on the ceiling’ song? Cheap copies of the Shermans, none of these songs earn their own emotional weight. One of the original’s most moving moments is Mr Banks’ night-time walk, grandiose church chords reprising deep thematic beats; a similar night-time scene here evokes nothing, without even shallow thematic beats to reprise.
(It’s interesting that, with Hairspray and Bombshell, Shaiman & Wittman are great imitators, not innovators. Remember, Ashman and Menken were off-Broadway enfant terribles before Disney, Stiles & Drewe off-West-End. Which young off-Broadway talent should Disney have snapped up?)
“A Conversation” deserves a conversation of its own. It’s sweet, sold well by Whishaw. It’s independent from “The Life I Lead”, its predecessor and the best song in the original – come its final reprise. In its original iteration it’s a sarcastic scene-setting; in its first reprise Mary subverts it; and in “A Man Has Dreams” Banks subverts it himself. How that leitmotif/character develops is a beautiful musical microcosm of the movie’s arc, up there with Judas’ “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” or “Let Me Entertain You”’s strip as one of the most surprising reprise reinventions. When “A Conversation” is reprised… oh, it’s not. No songs, no emotions are. Worse, when it has cause to be – at the ending with the kite’s patchwork – everything the song stood for is dropped mid-sentence. Shallow movie that this is, we never return to any musical ideas, nor emotional ones.
So, what of the good 2 ¼? Of course the animated sequence is the animated sequence, but the first time I smiled was when Emily Blunt growled “Royal Daulton MUUUUUUUUUUsic Hall”. Whilst Julie can do vaudeville, her Mary never would; this new style is a lovely expansion to the musical world.
With its next song, the standout “The Cover is Not the Book”, they surprise further, wonderfully; Mary from behind that modesty sheet isn’t just vaudeville, it’s risqué, burlesque! I LOVE this unexpected naughtiness.
So the best part of Mary Poppins 2 was when Mary looked like a 1930s stripper.
And “Trip a Little Light Fantastic” (not coincidentally, Lin-Manuel’s other song) may be this movie’s “Step in Time” (how tedious to be retreading), but this song is more hummable and charming. It also leads into that stunning tableau, and a great dance sequence begins! Until the first cut, when I whispered “Oh no”. The good ¼ of a song was over. Now for the bad ¾…
The director of Nine is a bad director
…which is Rob Marshall’s style. Rob Marshall cannot direct.
Chicago isn’t a good movie. As many critics commented, Marshall’s frenetic editing-on-movement, instead of capturing the dances’ characters, is too unfocused, rendering everything unimpressive. Compare Fosse’s camera choreography to Marshall’s, and there’s no contest.
In their dance sequences, “Step in Time” has 68 cuts in 5 minutes; “Trip the Light Fantastic” has 148. This matters.
As any 19-year-old film student who’s watched Touch of Evil and Russian Ark will pretentiously tell you, the longer the take the greater the immersion. For dance movies it ups the stakes too. “Step in Time” has well-choreographed miniatures – on the chimneys, over the rooftops – which, uninterrupted, always impress. “Trip the Light Fantastic” has an edit for when the dancer jumps and when the dancer lands. That’s how you edit non-dancers. The choreography of that scene is evidently fantastic – the lampposts and levels inventively used – but nothing impresses when Marshall edits like bad dancing is edited. Marshall fudges it.
Aside from askew visuals, his direction has other problems. Marshall’s Into the Woods is a good not great film, its flaw that it never tackles subtext. Whilst the woods should represent an ‘other’ to normality and civility, in Marshall’s hands, the forest looks no different to the Baker’s town. What lets down ITW is what ruins Poppins – Marshall doesn’t understand subtext.
The writers don’t understand subtext either
“Let’s Go Fly A Kite” is not a Sondheim-level metaphor to unpick. It does so itself: “With your feet on the ground you’re a bird in flight”. It’s the pleasures of playtime, a simple action transcending itself. “Nowhere To Go But Up”, however, is irritatingly literal from the off, then the camerawork is too. How stupid do David Magee and Rob Marshall think we are?
(Plus, George Banks sings “Fly a Kite” solely in the second person/“us”, whilst Michael Banks sings “But Up” solely as “I” – it’s subtle, but it shows their values)
“A Spoonful of Sugar” has just “the job’s a game” to explain its imaginative visuals and playful idea; “Can You Imagine That?” being about imagination is ironically unimaginative, then it spells its title out in a CGI mess.
Mary Poppins 1 is Baby’s First Metaphor – it never explains anything, but its words are simple and few. It’s a fable. The new movie’s moral – well, it has none, as seen by how little the songs mean.
“The Place Where Lost Plots Go”, despite its charming tune, is the worst offender. “Feed the Birds” was Walt’s favourite song – “That’s what it’s all about” – showing how even the smallest act of kindness – “tuppence” – has profound repercussions. It’s its own fable. But far from “the steps of St Paul’s”, “The Place” is where? This generality makes it aimless. “Do you ever dream or reminisce?” Who doesn’t! Their dead mother and “my best spoon”? It’s too non-specific to be a fable, too vague to be meaningful.
The book isn’t great at subtext either. Whether that hideous line “Everything is possible, even the impossible” (“Anything can happen if you let it” works MUCH better), or “until the door opens” (“until Spring has sprung” is surely more magical and relevant?), it speaks down to its audience where the original speaks up.
Where this lack of intelligence offends is in its two Banks women.
Kate Banks is bad at antiquing, and dead
After the mess of “Turning Turtle”, there’s a brief dialogue about the worthlessness of the bowl. “But our mother said it was priceless!” “Yes, I am sure it was – to her”. Ooooh, why was it priceless? Maybe, Michael painted it for her! Or it’s a gift from (dead?) George and Winnfired! Or it’s for her children’s futures! Mini-moral inevitable, can’t wait to see how these twenty minutes on her memento pay off, emotionally!
Oh… Dead mum just sucked at Bargain Hunt. It’s not priceless. End of subplot.
Why do we focus on her bowl for so long for no pay-off? Because – as the patched-up kite proves later – the film knows the price of everything... It never looks at the emotional value. The mother proves this. Kate has her last mention at the end of “A Conversation” – song two – then not once again does her ‘heartbroken’ husband address her, even by implication, never by name. The bowl – priceless to her – means nothing; by association nor does she. For the emotional Macguffin, she exits the film after ten minutes. She’s seen at the end, on the kite/shares – and price/value, what happens then?
More on that later; for now, let’s talk about the other Banks child.
The lesbian
Jane Banks is this movie’s best character. Admittedly, British socialism in the 1930s was going places (as were British Banks, incidentally), but after her mother we had another fierce, politically minded, independent woman. Their positivity and politicking make them great side-characters – neither has, nor needs, a dramatic arc, being self-contained and complete…
…until Jack says “I leered at you as a child” and Jane says “OK let’s bonk”. Oh the chemistry sizzled.
Jane Banks seems a self-confident, contented lady. Why was she shackled off at the end? That made me uneasy, for one of two reasons.
Sexism: Jane is single. Alone bad. Friend good. Disney felt uncomfortable leaving a woman unmarried, out of tropes, pity and sexism. Or…
Homophobia: What do characters like George in Famous Five, or George in Nancy Drew, or Harriet the Spy, have in common? It’s a modern imposition, but tomboys in trousers in 20th-century literature tend to be (perhaps over-simplistically) read as lesbian. Jane Banks strolls around London looking like a refugee from a Sarah Waters novel (not just me), her independence (whether hetero or queer coding) inspirational. Can you imagine someone at Disney’s PR realising the subtext they’d accidentally invoked, and nipping it in the bud with this hasty, unnecessary romance? Perhaps I’m overthinking the corporate machine, but however you read it, this romance isn’t good.
but the cast aren’t bad
This was exacerbated as Emily Mortimer was a ray of sunshine. She played Jane with childish cheekiness, self-assuredness, and real joy. The film should have been about her.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is predictably the next best thing, largely too due to the grin on his face and glint in his eye. Jack is the most fun character, and Lin’s fun is contagious.
Everyone else… Ben Whishaw’s reliably sensitive. The children are really talented. Julie Walters does Julie Walters but badly. Meryl was awful, awful, awful, playing late-period Johnny Depp – a wig with an accent (how can she have both the worst and best three-minute cameo in a 2018 musical?). David Warner is fine as Admiral Boom, but did we need to know he’s suffering from dementia?
And the star of the show herself?
Mary Poppins does nothing in Mary Poppins
Emily Blunt is good, when she’s allowed to be good; with this shallow script, Dame Julie wouldn’t have been practically perfect. In original moments – “Music Hall” – Blunt shines. In lesser moments, she simply can’t.
Early on Mary says “I would have thought I’d taught you better than to comment on a woman’s age”. It’s a clunky telling-off, it can’t roll of the tongue, thus Blunt delivers it like an impersonator. Later, Mary is asked “How much do you weigh?” and gasps, at which I laughed. Give her well-written, natural sass (“Oh, I haven’t sung in years – D-flat major”) and Emily Blunt is brilliant and original. Give her bad lines, and Blunt can’t do much but moan. This makes Mary Poppins irrelevant to the story.
Speaking of which… Mary Poppins is irrelevant to the story. Take Mary Poppins out of Mary Poppins, and what happens? The plot barely changes (Jane and Michael get a nanny, Mr Banks keeps his job) but the heart does: the family don’t grow together. But take Mary Poppins out of Mary Poppins 2, and neither plot nor heart change. Having seen Saving Mr Banks and subtext being hard, Mary says “I’m here to look after the Banks children” about the adults, then barely helps Michael and never Jane. Michael plays hide-and-seek with a receipt, and wins. The children already dote upon their father so no rift to heal there. Take Mary out, and they’d pay off the debt together in the self-same way. Mary Poppins is an irrelevance to Mary Poppins Returns.
*****
All of these are ultimately relatively minor quibbles. Many come from the impossible standards of the original, which could never be met. All this film needed, as its own fable and following the greatest cinematic fable, is the same charitable heart. Not the exact opposite…
The Ending – Nowhere To Go Bert Up
Quick question – where’s Bert? He cleaned chimneys; he painted streets; he made music; he’s Mary’s friend. He seemed to exist magically, simply to entertain the occupants of Cherry Tree Lane.
The Balloon Lady is Mary’s magical friend, a magical entertainer on Cherry Tree Lane.
So… After Julie Andrews said no, but Dick van Dyke said yes… WHY WASN’T THE BALLOON LADY BERT?
Regardless, the Balloon Lady should have given balloons to the children first (wasn’t Michael always head-in-the-clouds, whilst the children do the groceries and financing, adult before their time?) after which, with OTT cinematography, the jollity feels forced and the arcs unfinished. But the movie’s passed its most horrific moments by then anyway.
The ending is evil and ruins Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins 2 supposedly sits in ‘nicecore’, a genre with a simple morality where goodness begets greatness. How their conflicts end show their values:
• In Paddington 2, Paddington needs to buy his aunt a lovely book, then doesn’t The End
• In It’s A Wonderful Life, George Bailey needs to return home with $8,000, then doesn’t The End
• In Mary Poppins, George Banks needs to quieten down his troublemaking children with a sensible nanny, then doesn’t The End
• And in Mary Poppins Returns, Michael Banks needs to find collateral with the bank, and does.
The morality of these films is positively Biblical – kindness will be rewarded manifold. George Bailey’s altruism begets $25,000+; Paddington’s goodness brings his aunt to London; George Banks’ familial love promotes him. In Poppins 2, Michael’s victory is wholly transactional, a minimum of kindness with a minimal reward. They don’t find the shares by working together or outwitting the bank; they do so by luck, then run subserviently to pay.
Kate is an important part of the ending, in her final appearance. At the climax, Michael is given his childhood kite, patched up by his son with the only known image of his wife. It’s a moment that should hammer home how family is who, not where. Does he pause for thought, get emotional at his dead wife’s image, reprise “A Conversation”? Price of everything/value of nothing, course not. Suddenly, there’s gold in them thar hills, he sees the shares behind his wife. She is worthless to him now and he runs to the bank to chuck her away and pay everything off. He stops talking about her mid-sentence, and never mentions her again.
To his lost wife Michael sings “Where’d you go?”, and about the shares he says “I’ve just lost something very important”. Finding both at once, his priorities are clear; the former doesn’t matter and the latter really does.
Michael Banks grows up to be a manchild capitalist pig who shafts his dead wife to stay sleeping in his childhood bedroom. Had he said “Our family should remember us together”, Mary could have magically helped. Instead this ending is akin to George Bailey selling Zazu’s petals for $8,000, doing the bare minimum unkindly. For the superficial smiles of Poppins 2, there aren’t a lot of good deeds performed, not by Michael, and not by Mary.
This is where Michael’s “A Conversation” arc ends – shunting his wife for prime real-estate. But of course, he’s saved by something else:
“There was little boy named Michael who wanted to give his tuppence to a bird lady - but in the end, and after a little persuasion, he decided to give it to his father instead. Michael’s father - your grandfather - gave that tuppence to this bank and he asked us to guard it well. We did just that, and thanks to several quite clever investments - if I do say so myself... (Turning to Michael:) That tuppence has grown into quite a sum!”
The original doesn’t have a boo-hiss baddie as this has Colin Firth, but if it has a villain, it’s the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank. Thus, to quote from their ‘villain song’:
“If you invest your tuppence wisely in the bank/Safe and sound… you'll achieve that sense of conquest/As your affluence expands”
The bank wins. They’re now the heroes of the original. Mary Poppins once sang about giving your tuppence to the needy instead. “Feed the Birds” is now bad advice. Julie Andrews was wrong.
This ending is horrible. This film is horrible.
*****
And this is why I’m FURIOUS about the film. The original has those immortal lines “Come feed the little birds, show them you care, and you’ll be glad if you do”. This has the line “Look at that – all of us together in front of the… wait… “Certificate of shares!” This is it! This is what we’ve been looking for!”. This is the difference in outlook between the two films in a nutshell, between their hearts, and the reason I fundamentally love one, and the reason I fundamentally hate the other. Unforgivably, Mary Poppins Returns is uncharitable.
*****
Thank you for reaching the end of my Marxist/moralistic/queer close-reading of a children’s sing-song. In my next TED Talk I discuss the psychosexual ramifications of being a lonely goatherd. Whilst I’m clearly the minority, clearly wrong, the positivity about the film baffles me; I would love someone to point-by-point prove me wrong – please, please convince me that this is a nice film. What is its moral? But it’s fundamentally based on principles not of kindness but of capitalism. Its ending, its heart, are horrible.
It’s almost like Poppins 1 and 2 are alternate version of the same film, where Mary Poppins was made in Bedford Falls, whilst Mary Poppins Returns was made in Pottersville.
