If small children with British accents aren’t adorable enough, how about those synchronized swimming piglets? Nanny McPhee Returns has a sweet, uncomplicated, old-fashioned charm that is rare in children’s films these days. What, no 3D? Thank you, director Susanna White! It’s really not necessary with a charming story and capable actors.

It’s fun seeing Maggie Gyllenhaal, who plays a British farm mother of three whose husband has left to fight in the WWII, use an admirable English accent. Maggie Smith plays a dottie old, cow-pie sitting shop keeper with élan. Rhys Ifans is a little less comfortable as a scheming uncle – he does some really terrible things, but never seems to own up to the gravity of them. He’s completely overshadowed by Eros Vlahos, who plays a precocious and prissy city cousin who, along with his sister, goes to live on the farm while bombs are dropping in London.

The country cousins and city cousins do not get along, and mother has her hands full until Nanny McPhee arrives to magically sort things out. As the children learn their lessons, her disconcerting facial features disappear, and by the time she becomes attractive Emma Thompson again, it’s time for her to leave. It’s a fun device, but for all the warts and uni-brow, that snaggle tooth is just a little over-the-top distracting, and gets in the way of line delivery. Thompson, by the way, wrote the script from a popular children’s series by Christianna Brand.

You'll experience lots of laughter, tears, naughty children, magic, and did I mention synchronized swimming piglets? Plenty of warm fuzziness for the whole family, harkening back to those “Read me a story” times when everyone gathers together on the bed under a giant quilt. In this era of slick, noisy action films, it’s a welcome relief.

Rated PG

—Lisa Johnson Mandell