In the new movie Saving Mr. Banks, director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side) tells the tale of how Hollywood mastermind Walt Disney finally convinced Mary Poppins author P. L. Travers to sign over the rights to make the Mary Poppins movie, which is still considered one of the greatest films to date. What is presented is an earnest, whimsical film, which makes for a sweet and sugary movie, but not a terribly interesting tale.
Emma Thompson plays P.L. Travers, the cantankerous and stubborn author of the Mary Poppins books. Since 1943, Travers has been pursued by Walt Disney (Tom Hanks), who wishes nothing more than to make her book into a colorful movie musical. She finds this idea to be absurd and insulting, but due to her own bankruptcy, is forced to fly to Hollywood and give the adaptation a chance. She then sits down with Disney’s top screenwriters and songwriters and tries to figure out how to make this work. With that begins the fights over animation, casting, colors, songs, and character design. She is always unhappy about everything and everyone, and is increasingly making it difficult for all who are involved.
The main story of the film is how Disney convinces her to trust him not to make a mockery of her characters that she considers to be like family. But throughout the feature, this story is intersected, or arguably interrupted, by flashbacks of Travers’ past as a little girl in Australia living with her playful but irresponsible drunk of a father, played by a very charming Colin Farrell. These little story breaks start sweet, but end up becoming a nuisance as they break the flow of the other story. It’s as if there were two different scripts: one of her backstory in the outback with her father, and the other with her and Disney, and no one could decide which was a better story so the filmmakers combined them both.
You see the why’s and how’s of her childhood and how painful it was, and it could be said these events are what make her to be such a horrible person later in life, but they don’t really. All they show is that she had a strange, albeit not the best childhood. There are certain people who come in and out of her life that she ends up using as the inspiration for many of her characters in the Mary Poppins books, which is why the filmmakers spend so much time in the flashbacks. But they never really show her life after her father’s death where we would have learned more about how she became who she was. It seemed like a missed opportunity to go into her life more, if that was what the main story was about, but it’s not here. So as interesting as her flashbacks are, they weigh down a more appealing story with her and Disney.
Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks nail these roles! But really, are you surprised? They each have two well-earned Academy Awards. They know what they’re doing, and it shows here. Both are incredible as they go back and forth at each other, making them an enchanting pair of rivals to watch. Thompson has such a way of making you hate her in less than five seconds. It’s sad to say that P.L. Travers is one of the most vile people ever. She ends up being malicious, rude, condescending, just one mean bitch, which Thompson does so wonderfully that it’s very hard to not end up liking Travers only because of the great acting done by Thompson, because without that, Travers has little or no redeeming qualities about her. It’s clear Travers has some sort of mental illness, possibly bipolar. But in the 1960’s that wasn’t something people understood yet, so she just goes on with her life making herself and everyone around her miserable, which is sad for her. They do attempt at one point to try to humanize her towards the end of the film, but that was way too late in the movie. At that point you dislike her so much, it comes off as satisfying when she finally gives up and lets Disney do what he wanted, just so she wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore.
Hanks turns in grand performance as Walt Disney. At first glance he doesn’t look like Disney, but what he gives off is clearly the Disney vibe and soon he becomes Walt Disney in your eyes. His mannerisms, as well as his speech pattern and dialect was put in from Hanks to make sure he gave all the Disney fans something they could be proud of. If you are a fan of Walt and his life, they throw a lot of little nods and fun things that only those fans would know. It’s nice to see research and time was put into making this as good as it could be. What it shows most is how good a Walt Disney stand-alone biopic could be, one that follows his life, young to old, having a couple of different actors play him and show his struggle to become the icon he is still considered to be.
We don’t know how true her story is outside the Disney offices themselves, which she had every conversation recorded. So it’s safe to say what is being said during the Poppins debate scenes is what was said more or less. But when Travers is alone or at her hotel, you don’t know what has been added to make it more of a movie. It must have been “Hollywoodized” to be made more interesting, but Travers does have one or two moments where she is a nice person to her driver, played delightfully by Paul Giamatti. He tries his best to see the good in everyone, and Travers can’t stand him. But as the movie goes on, these two form some sort of friendship that is both sweet and odd. It shows she can be a person, she just can’t. But the issues with this is it’s clearly there to show she can be nice when she chooses to be, and everything else shown in the movie would go against that. So as sweet as it is, does feel plotted more for heartstring feels than anything else.
Overall the movie is good, more so for the great acting than a good story. If you love all things Disney, then you’ll love this, it doesn’t really cross into non-Disney fans world though. It does come off as made by Disney fans for Disney fans. That’s not a bad thing, but it’d be hard to sell a flick that can’t win in both camps. If you were looking for a docudrama that would give insight into the creation of Mary Poppins, you will be disappointed, instead you’re given an interesting look into the lives of two people who made one of the most successful movies of all time. It’s fascinating, but not as fascinating as it could have been.