Disney‘s new “Mary Poppins Returns” is a lot like a Snuggie™. That wearable fad blanket provided instant warmth and comfort to the receiver of the popular White Elephant gift, generated a hearty laugh or two, and was then thrown into the back of the closest, never to be seen again until the annual Goodwill run. This newfangled invention can’t compare with the reliability of a good ol’ regular blanket, but there is something charming— if a little bit off— about this new imitation.
The original “Mary Poppins” (a VHS staple at the grandmother’s house of this writer) is a film that can be truly labeled as a groundbreaker. The seamless blending of live-action and animation remains impressive to this day, and through many generations, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t know at least a couple bars to “Let’s Go Fly a Kite,” “A Spoonful of Sugar,” or “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” It’s a warm, sweet film whose themes still hold eternally true: growing up is a necessary part of life, but it doesn’t mean that your sense of wonder has to disappear in adulthood.
Thematically, that’s where ‘Returns’ is fighting an uphill battle from the get-go. The Banks children— Michael (Ben Whishaw) and Jane (Emily Mortimer)— are all grown-up in Depression-era London. Michael is a struggling artist whose wife has recently passed, and has taken a part-time job as a teller at their father’s old bank to make ends meet and provide for his three children (Pixie Davies, Nathanael Saleh, and Joel Dawson—futile to mention their character names since there are no real discernible traits among any of them). Because Michael is bit of a forgetful silly willy, the old family home is about to be foreclosed on (oops), and Michael only has just over a week to repay the bank (ran by a comically evil, comically bad Colin Firth). That’s when Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) decides to show up after a long hiatus to breathe life back into their lives.
The naughty Michael Banks apparently did not learn the lessons that the original film was trying to teach. In ‘Returns,’ he comes across as infantilized from the beginning, which makes that push-pull dynamic of balancing responsibilities and joy difficult to accept when there’s no real growth. The film attempts to make an excuse for Michael’s childlike behavior through a musical number early on where he asks his deceased wife for guidance. It’s schmaltzy and manipulative, and the film relies heavily on the dead parent motif as a crutch to generate easy emotion from the audience. To Whishaw’s credit, the warmth in his voice that has done wonders in the two “Paddington” films comes through honest and sincere, even as we can feel the soft score tugging at our heartstrings in a calculated manner.
Despite those forcibly fabricated emotions, a decent amount of that aforementioned awe does inspire, and it rests almost solely on the shoulders of Blunt. She is radiant in Julie Andrews’ iconic role, bringing that similar sense of charm, mischievousness and no-nonsense (there’s even some cheeky pat-on-the-head condescension which is a nice touch in a movie that’s generally painfully sincere). Unlike the film itself, her performance feels more like a continuation of Andrews’ work than strictly an imitation. And yet, despite Blunt as the film’s ace-in-the-hole, she— like Mary Poppins herself— magically disappears through large swaths of the film (can someone explain to us how she’s up for Lead in this but Supporting in “A Quiet Place?”). When she’s not on screen and/or the music isn’t playing, the film stops completely dead and you’re literally counting the minutes and begging for her return. The plot itself—to put it nicely—is ramshackle at best. Everything from the younger Banks’ grieving to Jack’s (Lin-Manuel Miranda, hung out to dry anytime he’s not opposite Blunt) not-well-explained place in the story to the comically bad antics at the bank are all excuses to set up the musical numbers.
When Blunt isn’t doing all of the heavy lifting, the musical numbers take the reins and are largely successful. None of the musical numbers will catch on in the pop culture lexicon the way the original did, but in their own right, spark occasional glimmers of magic. Specifically, the 2D animated sequence, with far and away the strongest musical number—“A Cover is Not the Book”— a witty, well-choreographed duet between Blunt and Miranda, who is essentially filling the shoes of the Dick Van Dyke role. Director Rob Marshall (“Chicago,” “Into the Woods”) knows his way around an elaborate musical number, and most of them are commendable, with the exception of a downright embarrassing number involving Poppins’ cousin Topsy (Meryl Streep in arguably her worst role ever) and an upside-down shop.
The greatest pitfall of “Mary Poppins Returns” isn’t the familiarity; it’s the cohesion, specifically the lack thereof. The narrative tissue is merely an excuse to set up each extravagant musical number, but the best musicals don’t forget to make the non-musical moments count. The ingredients are all here, but they’re just sitting on the prep table, disparate, tasty-looking in their own right, but unremarkable when not mixed together. The most important thing is to remind the audience of the feelings they felt watching the 1964 original, despite failing to realize that those feelings could never be captured again if the story isn’t engaging. The film could easily be titled “Mary Poppins: The Force Awakens.” Serving as both a sequel and a soft reboot of the original, that comparison is exactly what Disney is hoping for to fill their void in this “Star Wars”-less holiday season. In the moment, there’s a dazzling charm to some of the sequences, powerful enough to cast a spell on the accepting viewer. Weeks after leaving the theater, however, it’s all but a distant memory. Like taking a spoonful of sugar without the medicine, “Mary Poppins Returns” creates a strong high, but the comedown leaves you exhausted, potentially with the sweats, and yearning for something much more substantial. [C ]