Ravi Menon

A delightful rollcom with some competent performances by the child actors who often outshine Emily Blunt. The chemistry between them wavers between mid to low and the children seem to be doing all the trying while Blunt is strangely detached in too many sequnces to name aloud here. As Blunt and her director would know, the lead role requires loads of charisma and charm balanced adroitly against a mildly cocky aura which Blunt’s predecessor, the formidable Julie Andrews, pulled off effortlessly in the 1964 version. Blunt, an otherwise competent actress, struggles to project that vibe, caught as she is between the director’s obsession to paint her as a no-nonsense schoolmarm and a needless terseness in her interpretation of the character — which Mary Poppins clearly wasn’t meant to be. Emily Mortimer, Ben Wishaw and Meryl Streep in significant roles, clearly steal the show from Blunt, and that would be more than disconcerting to Ms Poppins herself. Well, the cover is certainly not the book. The choreography and slick camera work do not miss a beat. Neither does the excellent, though complicated lyrics, and taut musical embroidery into which the immensely talented Lin-Manuel Miranda weaves his imprint as the impishly loveable London lamp lighter, whose charm puts even Ms Blunt at ease.

The best feel-good movie if there is one for the outright emotional rollercoaster it is without pushing things over the melodramatic edge. A major glitch in an otherwise amazing plot and well crafted screenplay comes towards the end Andy Dufresne, after years of collaborating with the crooked warden’s money-laundering schemes, is able to escape prison and expose the warden by leaking the murky goings-on it to a local newspaper. The police evidently soon gets all details of a fake bank account into which the warden’s money is transferred. Warden commits suicide when police come to arrest him. Yet, Andy is still able to impersonate the fake bank account holder and withdraw all the warden’s illegal wealth!! Funny how the police fail to alert the bank before that.