Nanny McPhee

To borrow Ann Widdicombe's great observation about Michael Howard, there is something of the night about Nanny McPhee (Thompson). Black-frocked, thick-waisted, and with a warty, pustulating face framed between pendulous earlobes, Nanny McPhee looks like an amalgam of Worzel Gummidge and Mary Poppins - two other stalwarts of the British nursery at the end of empire. Carrying a rough staff like a West Country witch she appears into the chaotic life of undertaker Cedric Brown (Firth) and his seven motherless, unruly children just as Dickensian privations threaten to engulf them. Great Aunt Adelaide (Lansbury, borrowing Algernon's Aunt Augusta from Wilde's 'Earnest'), an old bat who has been covering expenses, has said she will turn off the tap unles Cedric marries before the end of the month. Thompson, who also wrote the screenplay, gives a nuanced turn as a potentially dangerous force of nature with a heart of gold and a connection to the afterlife. Director Jones (Waking Ned) brings no particular flair to a film aimed squarely at eight-year-olds. And pity poor Colin Firth, seemingly locked into roles in which he walks up the aisle with the nice girl, like some contract matinee idol in 1930s Hollywood.