Yes, it stars a Gyllenhaal and it's a kids' movie, but it's all about and by women and you should care about that.
Our favorite feminist and mainstream journalist Melissa Silverstein interviewed director Susanna White about the new fantasy film sequel Nanny McPhee Returns (read the entire review on womenandhollywood) and the filmmaking world, and she has some interesting things to say regarding Kathryn Bigelow's winning of the Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker earlier in 2010:
Quote:
SW: What I hope is that it’s going to make it easier for people coming up now. I feel very lucky. I had a long career in television and now I’ve made a big scale feature, but it wasn’t straightforward for me to get there when I look at my male contemporaries. And I really hope that for the young women coming through now, it’s going to be easier – it will be a more level playing field. It will be talent that comes through regardless of whether you’re male or female and I really hope that winning the Oscar put some big cracks in the glass ceiling.
As far as Nanny McPhee Returns,
Quote:
I fell in love with the writing. It’s such a departure from what I’ve done before. I really engaged, mainly with the character of Mrs. Green, a mom who’s desperately trying to hold it all together, do a job, run the house, look after her kids, and care for the old people in the village and not really coping and desperately in need of a nanny. I thought, although loosely set in World War II, it felt like a contemporary story I wanted to tell.
Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a mom who needs the magical nanny's help raising her two small children during wartime. Yes, it is a rip-off of Mary Poppins. yes, it's cute.
I quite enjoyed the first NANNY MCPHEE movie. But then, I'm a big fan of Emma Thompson.
Seriously...