Mary Poppins Returns: Until the Door Opens

1

Nowhere to Go but up

There is a strange thing about Mary Popping Returns that separates it from most sequels, its happy being itself. Does that mean the original is not taken into account? Of course not, the original emanates from every frame. Though, it is not defined by those frames. As it stands in the moment Mary Poppins Returns completes the massage proclaimed by the Disney classic, and surprisingly it does not reissue it.

Without a verse of “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” in sight Mary Poppins Returns continues the story of Jane and Michael Banks as they try to save their childhood home form foreclosure,  and  care for Michael’s  three children as his wife has just recently died. It is in this turmoil that Mary Poppins returns. One of the most delightful aspects of the Mary Poppins Returns is that it has a deep conversation with its predecessor before it takes over. This back and forth is almost self-evident in both the film’s additions to song canon and its progression of the theme of childlike wonder.

It is this progression that allows Mary Poppins Returns to expand on what the original film set out to do. The sequel dose not ask its adult characters to forgo their responsibilities and become a children what it asks is that they remember where they came from and where they going. Up. Mary Poppins Returns is a reminder  that growth never stops. It is a continual daily endeavor in fact, to strive for that childhood wonder so that we can grow up.

Mary Poppins Returns asks us to be childlike not childish. Whereas the word childish suggests stagnation, a lack of growth, childlike implies an upward progression along with our need to look back regularly to understand where we came from. Nowhere is this idea more evident than in the song “There is nowhere to go but up”. Growth happens there is no stopping it. However, to start that growth we most first understand our nature as children.