One of my all-time favorite childhood movie is being remade. If you guessed Mary Poppins then you would be right. The official trailer dropped this week, and Emily Blunt is playing the one and only Mary. This role was made famous by Julie Andrews in the 1964 classic musical fantasy. Set in London 25 years after the events of the original film, the highly anticipated sequel sees Poppins back to help the next generation of the Banks family after they experience a personal loss. Meryl Streep portrays Poppins’ cousin Topsy, who wasn’t in the first movie. The cast also includes Colin Firth, Angela Lansbury, Dick Van Dyke, Emily Mortimer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Julie Walters.
I absolutely love the fact that Dick Van Dyke is in the remake. Not only because he was incredible in the original, but the man is 92 years old! He also dances like time has not stopped and that he hasn’t aged one bit.
As the footage begins we see Jack the Lamplighter (played by Lin-Manuel Miranda) helping Michael’s son fly a kite. They start pulling harder, and off in the distance Mary is floating down from the sky with her umbrella. The trailer continues as they pull harder on the kite, they see Mary Poppins descending from the sky. It ends with Michael and Jane reminiscing about their childhood.
While the original was a favorite of mine, I kind of think that this is something that we need right now. Maybe I’m going to the extremes with this thought, but if you think about what’s going on in Hollywood right now, we need something light. Not only that but politically the world feels a bit insane. It always seems like people are fighting about something. So when I saw that Mary would be returning to the world, I thought that there couldn’t be a better time.
The original movie was based on the magical books by British writer P.L. Travers and was published over time spanning from 1934 – 1988. If you’re not familiar with the books (or even the movie), they centered on English nanny Mary Poppins. Mary was blown by the East wind to Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane, London, and into the Banks’ household to care for their children.
Mary and the children encounter pavement-painters and shopkeepers, and have various adventures until Mary Poppins abruptly leaves—i.e., “pops out”. Only the first three of the eight books feature Mary Poppins arriving and leaving. The later five books recount previously unrecorded adventures from her original three visits. As P. L. Travers explains in her introduction to Mary Poppins in the Park, “She cannot forever arrive and depart.
So its only fitting that Mary has popped back into our lives in this new adapted musical film. As noted, this film takes place 25 years after the original film – set in Depression-era London. The kids are all grown up now, but that certainly won’t stop adventures from happening. The movie is set to open on Christmas day, and I for one, could not be happier!