A hybrid of two of Julie Andrew's most loved films.

Exactly what I thought, too!

minus the heart and wonderful music.

I thought this film was rather empty. Wonderful art direction though.

That's what I thought too :)

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I was also thinking that one part of it reminded me of My Fair Lady - which was originally a Julie Andrews role on Broadway. It was the idea of Evangeline being educated and taught to speak properly to improve her station in life. The conversation when she comes back and is speaking really carefully reminds me of the Ascot scene.

Obviously this is not an intentional mash-up. The Sound of Music was based upon a real-life family. Although the film Mary Poppins was released in 1964, the books it was based on began publication in the 1930s with a new book about once a decade (2 in the 30s and 2 and in the 80s). Nanny McPhee is based on the Nurse Matilda trilogy of childrens' books. They were published between 1964 and 1974.

This still does not refute your opinion that this movie is simply a revision of two popular films but I considering when the Nurse Matilda books were published, I think there was just a period of time when stories about "bad" children were popular (although in the movie Mary Poppins the children were not naughty but precocious and ignored while in Nurse Matilda they are most certainly naughty). Examples of naughty children receiving starring roles can be seen in the St. Trinians comics (and films of the 50s), several Roald Dahl stories, the film Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows, etc. The movies I have seen prior to this time period focused on the naughty children learning a lesson or villainized by the "good" children who were lead characters. In the examples I have given, the main purpose of the naughtiness is for comedic effect rather than moral or to give the story an antagonist. So while I see the connection to two films of Julie Andrews, I think the connection could be made about nearly any film in which the nanny plays an important role.

In the extras for the movie they say that it is based off of the Nanny Matilda children's books. They also say it has the air of Lemony Snicket and Mary Poppins.

7 kids, a potential step-mother that, wants to send the kids away (The Sound of Music), and a magical Nanny, who, brings the family together (Mary Poppins). Coincidence?