Savvy at the Movies: Mary Poppins

May 28, 2009

by Amy Rees

What better way to escape than curling up with some popcorn and jostling your little ones around on the couch for a comfy view of a great movie?  Perhaps watching the same great movie projected onto a huge white sheet on a summer night. Perhaps inviting Mary Poppins in for tea!

Well, if you've got the sheet and the projector, get outside.  And if you're stuck inside for viewing, better dash to the sofa for a good seat!  Mary Poppins is landing at your house!

You may think you remember Mary Poppins, either from the original (and quite different) P.L. Travers book or from the Disney movie.  You can hum the chorus of A Spoonful of Sugar and you can both say and spell 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious well, sort-of.  Anyway, you think you remember it well.  Forgive us, but if you haven't watched it reel to reel since your preschooler joined the family, you've hardly seen it at all.

Mary Poppins is first-rate family entertainment.  There's nothing to warn careful parents about (there's a growling dog after the bank scene about two-thirds of the way through, but your three-year-old isn't likely to make it that far and she likely won't be too ruffled even if she does).  There's everything to love animated penguins tap dancing with Bert (Dick Van Dyke), carousel horses that jump out of the round and race, the magic carpetbag, the suffrage crusade by Mrs. Banks (the incomparable Glynis Johns), and that true act of magic:  a children's room that cleans up after itself!  The soundtrack is even more fantastic than you remember preschoolers are especially taken with the musical want-ad the Banks children write to describe their dream nanny.

And of course, Mary is your dream nanny too.  We know a savvy mom with no outside help at all who claims she doesn't worry about any tough days when she knows that none other than Mary Poppins herself is just a DVD button away.  Your child and you could do much worse than being entertained, cajoled, delighted, really taught something (believe it or not) by Mary.   She's a one-woman getaway, delivered by umbrella and with you until the wind changes.

Don't miss it!

Oh!  If there are other movies for which you'd like a savvy review before you let your kiddos watch it, be sure to visit Common Sense Media.  We find their caring and careful insights indispensable!  (And of course they love Mary Poppins too (though we're sure even younger kids will adore her)!)

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