Saving Mr. Banks Review

A spoonful of sugar goes down remarkably well in Disney’s interpretation of the Mary Poppins origins tale.

Photo by Francois Duhamel © 2013 - Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Walt Disney’s painful fight for the rights to adapt P.L. Travis’ Mary Poppins has been kept mainly under the table until now. Unbeknownst to cheery moviegoers of the 60s who lapped up the sing along songs and dancing cartoon penguins, pre-production of the widely successful musical was less than chirpy. It’s no secret to those involved that the working relationship between ‘Uncle Walt’ and ‘Pamela’ was less than amiable during the making of the film. Saving Mr. Banks tells the untold story of author Pamela Travers who was fiercely protective of her characters, only succumbing to Disney’s wishes after her finances were bled dry.

After 20 years of playing cat-and-mouse, Travers (wonderfully incarnated by Emma Thompson) begrudgingly agrees to fly to Los Angeles to discuss the film adaptation of her beloved book with Disney (Tom Hanks). Here we witness the steeliness of their rapport to near perfection, particularly in Travers’ fear of selling out and Disney’s sense of desperation to get his film made. Although fairy dust has been sprinkled on history with a certain amount of liberty taking in the suggestion of reconciliation between the author and the popular showman, Saving Mr. Banks plays with just the right amount of depth and levity to please most audiences.

Unyielding in her determination, Travers is very toffee-nosed about everything Hollywood and scoffs at the idea of a musical adaptation. We see through flashbacks her early life in Australia with a feckless but charming father (played by Colin Farrell), the source of inspiration for the Mr Banks character. Piece by piece, biographical details break down her frosty exterior, unveiling a hurt little girl whose childhood was cut short.

Director John Lee Hancock (of the also brazenly fictionalised The Blind Side) is obviously no adversary to sentimentality. The sweetened screenplay by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith risks caricaturing one note characters but remains safe in the hands of Hanks and Thompson, who prove to be charming, layered and surprisingly moving. (Even if little details such as Disney’s infamously pushy and demanding demeanor and his resistance to work with women in positions of power are left out.) Unsurprisingly, the writers had trouble reconciling the more obscure aspects of Travers’ personal life for a mainstream audience in original drafts of the script. Her fascination with Eastern religions is merely hinted at; while a troubling relationship with her adopted son and tales of her romantic liaisons are omitted completely. Wisely, Saving Mr. Banks has stripped away the excess and irrelevance, striking a palatable blend of fact and fiction.

Emma Thompson is rightly receiving accolades for her performance having already accumulated several award nominations and being tipped for an Oscar nomination. With a theatrically trained background, she does a formidable job at pushing past her strict haughty persona. Not only is she riotously funny, but inwardly deeply conflicted. Few actresses could pull of what she does, rooting Travers’ comedic complexity and melancholy in a real sense of reality.

In the context of a feel-good family flick, there is little to complain about Saving Mr. Banks. It’s hard not to be charmed by the lovable, smile-inducing, dare-I-say magical sentimentality the story is coated in. Fans of Mary Poppins will lap it up, as did I.