Film Review | Saving Mr Banks
A big, lumpy spoonful of sugar
John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr Banks is a Walt Disney film about Walt Disney. How much of a film does that make it? The company’s classic musical Mary Poppins completes 50 years this year and this is the first step in celebrating the landmark.
The film is not so much about the making of the film as about the sad, father-fixated childhood of P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), the author of the book Mary Poppins, and the wily, unputdownable Mr Disney (Tom Hanks) who built the Disney empire. For Disney, the book has been a 20-year obsession; he has promised his daughter he will bring Mary Poppins to life. The imperious author finally agrees to make a deal when she is on the brink of financial bankruptcy. She reaches Los Angeles for a two-week collaboration on the script. All British purism and sophistication on the surface, she is quite a challenge for Disney’s artists, who are all-American, irreverent and gung-ho. The film cuts to flashbacks of Travers’ childhood in Australia with a disturbed mother (Ruth Wilson), an alcoholic father (Colin Farrell) and aunt Ellie (Rachel Griffiths), in sloppily executed sepia scenes.
The daunting, witty lady infuses some life, and there are some enjoyable moments in the conflict between the book and the movie. Thompson elevates the mediocre writing with a formulaic but perfectly pitched “English lady" impersonation. There is no chemistry between Hanks and Thompson, and Hanks goes through the role with a few staple expressions.
This is as palatable as any Disney movie gets. The bitter author, portrayed as a lonely spinster who hides deep insecurities from childhood, reduces the life of P.L. Travers to a stereotype that the climax can liberate with happy tears. It’s highly unlikely that the movie would have been a catharsis for the author in 1964, when the film came out and became a global sensation.
Barring a few scenes, Saving Mr Banks is dull. What else would a glorified corporate film be?
Saving Mr Banks releases in theatres on Friday.
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