When you hear the name of Mary Poppins, a visual of a woman with a blue hat and a red coat holding an umbrella flying in the sky might appear in your mind. Mary Poppins is known for one of the most loved musical fantasy movies of all time. Today, let’s fly with Mary in our Mary Poppins review!
Mary Poppins Review
The Plot
Trouble Finding The Perfect Nanny
George Banks, a bank employee, is looking for an ideal babysitter to babysit his babies, Jane and Michael. His wife, Winnifred says that their last nanny left. In the span of a week, 4 nannies left their jobs.
George publishes a hiring advertisement where he strictly mentions that he is looking for a no-nonsense, perfect nanny. But no candidate seems to quite fit the bill.
Mary’s Appearance In London
Suddenly, a magical lady with an umbrella lands on the street of London. Everyone gets astonished.
Jane and Michael become very excited to see the flying lady. That lady introduces herself as Mary Poppins. Mary notices the advertisement. Somehow, Mary accomplishes the mission to convince George Bank to hire her for the babysitting job. After much hesitation, George hires Mary at the very last moment.
The Best Friend Of The Siblings
Mary’s bonding with the siblings is going smoothly so far. The children are happy, as are their parents. In a jiff, Mary fixes everything. Be it cleaning the nursery or doing their homework – everything is done magically by Mary.
Mary, Bert and the children go out for an outing in London. They have lots of fun together. From rescuing a fox from a fox hunt to riding the carousel, everything the group did together.
She takes part in a horse race. She wins it with style and creates her own word ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ which actually does not have any specific meaning, but it becomes Mary’s victory word whenever she wins anything.
Storm In Life
Mary and the children met Bret’s uncle Albert who loves to crack jokes. George Banks gets easily irritated by the jolly environment at home. Banks threatened Mary to fire her from the work if she can’t take care of the children.
Later, Mary convinces Banks to let the children visit his workplace. Mary likes to sing lullaby to the children, and she sings about a bird food seller in St. Paul’s Cathedral.
The next day, Mary takes the children to the bank. In the bank, they meet Mr. Dawes, an elderly bank officer. Michael gets into an argument with Mr. Dawes in the bank regarding the investment issues which caused a huge turmoil in the bank. Due to the chaos Michael created in the bank, George Banks’ job gets in trouble.
Mary’s Magic Fixes Everything
In the next day, Mr. Dawes calls George Banks and hands him an humiliating amount of money as a retiring ransom.
George tells Dawes about a joke Uncle Albert told his children and lightens the mood. The moment led Dawes to mend the relationship between them. Later, George gets rehired as a Junior Partner in the same bank by Dawes.
Mary’s departure time arrives when the wind changes. By fixing everything among the family, Mary leaves.
Cast and Director
- Julie Andrews portrays Mary Poppins, who is the sweet, beautiful and loving woman, lives in the cloud and befriends Jane and Michael.
- Dick Van Dyke is Bert, who happens to be Mary’s friend.
- In this movie, Van Dyke appears as Mr. Dawes as well.
- David Tomlinson is Mr. George Banks, who is a bank employee and father of Jane and Michael.
- Glynis Jones is Winifred, George’s wife and mother of the children.
- Jane Banks was played by Karen Dotrice.
- Michael Banks was Matthew Garber.
Movie Facts
The movie is based on the plot of London, but the movie wasn’t filmed in the place. It was filmed in the Walt Disney studio surrounded by the posters of London.
Mary Poppins were based on the book series of P.L. Travers book series Mary Poppins
Mary Poppins has two more sequel movies. One was released in 2013 with the title of ‘Saving Mr. Banks’, and another was released in 2018 named ‘Mary Poppins Returns’. Lily Collins was casted in the 2018’s version.
Our Review
The film has a colorful set which makes the visual quite delightful. The director’s decision to bring London to the set of Walt Disney was surely a great idea.
Julie Andrews made her debut through this film. Julie being Mary Poppins took a place in people’s hearts. Watching Julie being the loving, sweet woman who loves children is something people will remember for the longest time.
In the movie, Julie’s chemistry with the children was very adoring. Mary Poppins is mostly a children’s movie. To be in a children’s movie, a director’s preference should be someone who loves the presence of children.
Julie was very natural with the children artists, which makes her even more desiring. Julie’s costume in the movie was all bright. To blend with her character, costume designers made all of Julie’s dresses bright so that it emphasizes her character more.
Bret, Julie’s friend, had 4 jobs in the movie. Starting as a painter and ending as a kite seller were beautifully shown. The versatility of each role of Dick Van Dyke brought out the acting potentiality in him.
Being the highest grossing film of 1964, Mary Poppins is considered as one of the most successful films of Walt Disney. The script tells the reason why Mary Poppins brought 13 nominations in the Oscars.
Even though the ratings on the critics websites and opinions of the reviewers don’t do justice with the film, the reviewers and the critics thoroughly praised everyone’s acting in the movie. Giving the title of one of the best film adaptation of a classic fairytale, Mary Poppins represents as one of the must watch movie from the classic movie’s list.
If you liked our review on Mary Poppins, do check out some of our other reviews on classic movies!
