History Film / NannyMcPhee

* BeautyEqualsGoodness: Played with. It's more like "goodness equals beauty", as Nanny [=McPhee=] grows progressively beautiful as the families she cares for become better people.

* TheAgeless: [[spoiler: Mrs. Docherty, the endlerly lady in the second movie, was Baby Aggie in the first movie. Yet Nanny [=McPhee=] still looks the exact same.]]

* CanonForeigner: Selma Quickly did originate from the Nurse Matilda books.

* MissingMom: Mrs. Brown in the first movie is dead. Her death is crucial to the plot as her aunt is threatening to cut off Cedric unless he marries before Adelaide’s deadline ends.

* TheAgeless: [[spoiler: Mrs. Docherty, the endlerly lady in the second movie, was the baby in the first movie. Yet Nanny [=McPhee=] still looks the exact same.]]

* DeathByAdaptation: In the original book, Mrs. Brown was alive and well. She's dead prior to the events of the film version, and this was the main driving point for it as Mr. Brown is forced to be remarried.

!!Tropes specific to ''Nanny [=McPhee=] Returns''

* KickingMyOwnButt: Nanny [=McPhee=] casts a spell on the Greens and their cousins, which causes them to fight themselves rather than each other while Vincent gets compelled to destroy their valuables, and will end uo destroying their father's letters if the scene goes on. She promises to lift the spell if they apologize for hurting each other.

* ArcWords:"He took her lovingly by the hand" from ''Literature/PrideAndPrejudice''.

* ArcWords:'"He took her lovingly by the hand."'' from ''Literature/PrideAndPrejudice''.

* AccidentalPervert: When Mrs. Quickly has tea with Cedric, [[KidsPlayMatchBreaker the kids have laced the room with nasty pranks]] and Cedric spends the whole tea trying to block or hide them to prevent Mrs. Quickly from noticing. Due to this, he ends up tackling and embracing her in a variety of ways, causing her to think he's being driven mad with lust until she can't take it anymore. She even remarks when the children come to apologize that this perceieved lust explains why there are so many of them.
* AdaptedOut: In the original ''Nurse Matilda'' books, there even more children in the Brown family. In the film, there are only seven.

** When one of kids is PlayingSick, Nanny [=McPhee=] makes it real.
** In the sequel, the farm kids refuse to share their beds with the city kids, claiming they'd rather share their beds with the farm's goat and cow. Then the smallest farm kid blurts out "elephant" as his choice, leading up to Nanny [=McPhee=] trying to hide a literal ElephantInTheLivingRoom.

* CopycatMockery: When sabotaging the wedding, two of the kids put on wigs that resemble Mrs. Quickly's hair and copy her line about calling them "small things" from earlier.

* FullNameBasis: We're given no alternative address for Nanny [=McPhee=] herself, and nobody refers to her as any less than her full title.

* INeverToldYouMyName: One of Nanny [=McPhee=]'s oddities is that it seems she never needs to be told someone's name. In the first film, the kids try to mess with her by introducing themselves with silly and rude names and she shows no sign of surprise or offense, but then she turns around to leave the room and bids them all goodnight by their real names. They're duly unsettled.

* JerkassHasAPoint: While Adelaide isn’t a pleasant woman, she is right in that the Brown children were uncontrollable prior to Nanny [=McPhee=]’s arrival.

** While not prominent, Celia and Cyril's surname is Gray while Isabel's family is Green. Celia and Cyril comes from the city while Isabel's family lives on the countryside. This also ties into the themed naming from the film in general, as the protagonists from the last film have the surname Brown.

** [[spoiler:They also pretend to be attacked by bees at the wedding. It, too, becomes more real and suceeds.]]

* SoupIsMedicine: Ms Blatherwick, the cook, claims that the best thing to cure an ill person is potato gruel with peelings in. However, the children, who are PlayingSick, hate it.

** Nanny [=McPhee=] always has five lessons to teach. What else the people she helps may learn is another matter.

* AccidentalPervert: When Mrs. Quickly has tea with Cedric, the kids have laced the room with nasty pranks and Cedric spends the whole tea trying to block or hide them to prevent Mrs. Quickly from noticing. Due to this, he ends up tackling and embracing her in a variety of ways, causing her to think he's being driven mad with lust until she can't take it anymore. She even remarks when the children come to apologize that this perceieved lust explains why there are so many of them.

* AllThereInTheManual: The film's [[Novelization}} greatly expands the backstories of most of the characters.

* CassandraTruth: When the kids talk about [[spoiler:the pigs' amazing abilities, like synchronized swimming and climbing trees,]] Isabel tells them to stop telling lies.

* WhatTheHellHero: Simon refuses to give Nanny [=McPhee=] any control in the kitchen scene... despite the fact that the curse they're under could cause his baby sistef to be hurled into a pot of boiling water against his other siblings' will. Naturally, everyone is screaming at him to suck it up and apologize until he does so.

(THUD)\\

* BaitAndSwitch: When Celia refuses to go out to help catching piglets in the mud, at first it seems to her (and us) that Nanny [=McPhee=] is going to force her to go outside with magic...then she just holds up a pair of wellingtons.

* BlanketTugOWar: The baby elephant and Vincent in the sequel.

* CassandraTruth: In the second movie, when the kids talk about [[spoiler:the pigs' amazing abilities, like synchronized swimming and climbing trees,]] Isabel tells them to stop telling lies.

* ChekhovsSkill: From a ''bird'' of all things (in the sequel).
* ContinuityNod: In the sequel, [[spoiler: Mrs. Docherty turns out to be Aggie, the youngest Brown child from the previous movie]].
* CueTheFlyingPigs: ''Nanny [=McPhee=] Returns'' had flying pigs, referential of a similar gag in the first film in which "snow in August" was used as a phrase to describe something supposedly impossible and then did happen thanks to Nanny's magic.

* EekAMouse: Faked by Celia to keep her aunt Isabel from signing Phil's contract to sell the farm.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: In the sequel, a BritishRoyalGuard turns out to be one of Nanny [=McPhee's=] charges from the past. [[spoiler:So was old Mrs. Docherty-- known as Agatha/Aggie Brown before her marriage.]]

* KickingMyOwnButt: In the sequel, Nanny [=McPhee=] casts a spell on the Greens and their cousins, which causes them to fight themselves rather than each other. She promises to lift the spell if they apologize for hurting each other.

* LighterAndSofter: The second film has a lot more whimsical, extravagant, and perhaps frivolous uses of magic, and the scary vibe around Nanny [=McPhee=] herself is reduced.

* {{Novelization}}: There's one for ''Nanny [=McPhee=] Returns'' and it's written by Emma Thompson, who plays Nanny [=McPhee=] and was the writer for both films. It was her first ever children's book and it takes the form of a movie filming diary mixed in with the actual story.

* RunningGag: "Nanny [=McPhee=]. Little 'c', big 'P'" becomes Nanny [=McPhee=]'s standard greeting.

* TimeBomb: Of a sort. An unexploded bomb is discovered and must be defused, with the pressure of error and its potential to explode at any moment by itself.
* TitleDrop: In the sequel, a war veteran warns Isabel and family of the threat of bombings, calling it "the Big Bang". The American title averts this.

* ArcWords: In the first film, ''"He took her lovingly by the hand."'' from ''Literature/PrideAndPrejudice''.

* BrainyPig: Zigzagged in the sequel. The piglets do synchronised swimming and climb trees, but that was because [=McPhee=] put a spell on them. The guy who buys them claims that he knew a pig who could play Scrabble and another who could [[TalkingAnimal count to ten in French]]. He turns out to be joking for the last one, but he admits that pigs are clever animals.

* EekAMouse: Faked by Celia in the sequel to keep her aunt Isabel from signing Phil's contract to sell the farm.

** In the sequel, the girls have to prevent Isabel from signing the deed to the farm, and Megsie successfully filches uncle Phil's pen. When Phil finds three more in a drawer, [[spoiler:Nanny [=McPhee=] intervenes by bringing back [[BrickJoke the baby elephant]] to snatch the three pens without him knowing. And then he finds the first pen on Megsie]].
* NightmareFuelStationAttendant: Miss Topsy and Miss Turvy in the sequel, who talk about harvesting Phil's kidneys and taxidermising him with mad glee.

* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Implied. Nanny [=McPhee=] asks Norman to not lose her stick as the paperwork to replace it is unbelievable.
* OffscreenTeleportation: A RunningGag in the first movie. Nanny [=McPhee=] will appear behind people when she wasn't even previously close at all. She casually justifies this with the line:

* PetTheDog: Cyril and Celia’s butler is just as pompous as they are and wants to leave them behind as fast as possible, but when he returns to give them some unfortunate news [[spoiler: [[ParentalNeglect involving their parents]]]] he is much softer to them and even seems to be on the verge of tears showing he does care for their well-being.

** Revisited in the sequel, [[spoiler:involving a [[EekAMouse "mouse"]]]].

* RadishCure: Nanny [=McPhee=]'s magic usually operates on the idea, as most of her lessons involve [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor granting the childrens' wishes exactly.]] When they cause chaos in the kitchen or fight with each other, Nanny [=McPhee=] makes it impossible for them to stop, to the point of risking serious damage, until they verbally and politely express the desire to and apologize. When they pretend to be sick to stay in bed all day, Nanny [=McPhee=] will make them sick for real and magically bind them to their beds, requiring disgusting medicine and soup to heal, making their sick day no picnic. If they say they'd rather share their beds with animals instead of their cousins, they get to enjoy cuddling with a cow or baby elephant. Pretty soon, the kids learn not to mess around.

* Really700YearsOld: [[spoiler:If the fact that she's the same in both movies despite a possible time difference of ''60 years'' is any indication.]]

* RunningGag:
** "I ''did'' knock" in the first film.
** "Nanny [=McPhee=]. Little 'c', big 'P'" becomes Nanny [=McPhee=]'s standard greeting in the second film.

* SheIsAllGrownUp: In the sequel Mrs. Docherty is revealed to be [[spoiler: Aggie Brown from the first movie.]]

* SnowMeansLove: [[spoiler:At the end of the first movie, Nanny [=McPhee=] summons snow that magically cleans up the yard and removes the garish colors for the wedding of Cedric and Evangeline.]]
* SocialClimber: In the first movie, Mrs. Quickly allows herself to become reconciled to Mr. Brown (after his disastrous first attempt at a proposal) when she finds out that his aunt-in-law is ''Lady'' Adelaide Stitch. When she finally meets Lady Adelaide, Mrs. Quickly goes into extreme ProfessionalButtKisser mode.

* SpotOfTea: Used a few times over.
* TheStinger: At the end of the sequel, [[spoiler:the elephant gets to enjoy the Scratch-o-Matic machine that was designed for the pigs.]]

* WardrobeWound: Celia shrieks more about her new clothes being dragged in the mud than during the ensuing beat-'em-up scene.

* TimeBomb: Of a sort, in the sequel.

* TakeAThirdOption: In the first movie, Lady Adelaide gives Cedric [[AnOfferYouCantRefuse an offer he can't refuse]]: she will take in one of his daughters (and ''only'' daughters) to live with her. She is especially keen on taking the youngest, Chrissie, while Nanny [=McPhee=] reminds the children that they can't send away the donkey they hoped to trick their great aunt into taking. It takes some quick thinking from Simon, but ultimately [[spoiler:Evangeline is sent away, having been passed off as a daughter of Cedric's despite actually being their scullery maid]].

** While she typically goes to households with troublesome children and helps them become better, she tends to let them do things their way as a learning experience. For example, she allowed Simon and his siblings to drive Mrs. Quickly away with their pranks so that they would realize how wrong their actions were and for them to make things right.

* RadishCure: Nanny [=McPhee=]'s magic usually operates on the idea, as most of her lessons involve [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor granting the childrens' wishes exactly.]] When they cause chaos in the kitchen or fight with each other, Nanny [=McPhee=] makes it impossible for them to stop, to the point of risking serious damage, until they verbally express the desire to and apologize. When they pretend to be sick to stay in bed all day, Nanny [=McPhee=] will make them sick for real and magically bind them to their beds, requiring disgusting medicine and soup to heal, making their sick day no picnic. If they say they'd rather share their beds with animals instead of their cousins, they get to enjoy cuddling with a cow or baby elephant. Pretty soon, the kids learn not to mess around.