For the most part I like musicals -- provided the music is good. This idea that life suddenly is so that you just break into song... well I am infatuated by that. Life is a lyric. Sometimes a good lyric. Sometimes a not-so-good-holy-crap-did-we-just-lose-to-the-Jets-at-home bad lyric (in those moments it helps to flip on the previous night's SNL which included a particular musical performance by Cee-Lo Green). But life is sometimes best described in song. And so that much of Mary Poppins I expected to love. As a kid I watched the movie almost every time I went to Nana and Grandpy's house. But I hadn't seen it in 20 years.
The music is just great. Simple and yet rich lyrics. Catchy. Melodic. And just plain fun to sing. Already Isaac is singing "Spoonful of Sugar" and "Step in Time" and "Let's Go Fly A Kite". Lucy was bee-bopping around the room to "Step in Time". Now Isaac's not a fan of the "Feed the Birds" song. And I admit that one is a little out of place in the narrative of the movie. Too predictive of the future even for someone as magical as Mary Poppins. And mildly creepy, eerie sounding.
But where I didn't expect this movie to get me was in the idea of it all. In the magic of it. Quite simply it is an absolutely marvelous movie. Acted. Written. Directed. And the magic. Oh the magic. So inspired. So beautiful. And so seems to just creep in on you from the corners of your mouth, like that smile the Edwardian Mary Poppins can't ever keep from emitting, or tapping her foot too. It's just there. Just hidden enough and yet ready to explode, to overwhelm the reality. Like her smile. The magic in Mary Poppins is restrained just enough to not be overwhelming. To not be about the magic of Mary Poppins but about the magic of life. Of living. Of celebrating moments with family, with each other. Even between Bert and Mary I was overwhelmed by their relationship that existed, clearly, but was still on the periphery. Hidden, but curling at the corners. These things I didn't see as a child viewer but see them now as I watch it with my children beside me.
I'll admit to crying when the father has his awakening moment. I'm a dad. I'm not always a good dad. I have faults and I'm not perfect. But it's something always worth all my time. The father in Mary Poppins realized this. And it just floored me. Caught me way off guard only moments after dancing along with Isaac and Lucy to "Step in Time". How is this movie about that too? They don't make movies like this anymore.
The magic in Mary Poppins is that it's a really, really good movie. It's pure fun and pure ingeniousness (it had to improve off of Travers' book according to what I've read of it). It's Disney's crowning achievement still. Almost 50 years later. It's also profound. Simply, utterly profound. And magical. I can't say that enough because I felt it in every scene. Felt that grand sense of "what if" we could jump into a painting; "what if" we could laugh until we floated away; "what if" we could snap our fingers and watch our toys all be made right.
That's the thing about the right, good magic in books and movies. The magic that leaves you asking, "What if". When I can't help but wonder not only "what if". That it's somehow, in some way, because of something, possible.
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