Movie Review: Saving Mr. Banks

Possible spoilers ahead!

 

 

You could say “Saving Mr. Banks” is the latest fairy tale from Disney. But unlike other fairy tales, this one is based on an incredible true story.

The movie focuses on two weeks in 1961, when Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) made the final push to get P.L. Travers’ (Emma Thompson), Mary Poppins on the big screen. Walt Disney had spent 20 years trying to get the film rights tot he popular books, but failed every time. Now that sales of her work are slowing, P.L. Travers is encouraged by her agent to travel to California to meet Walt, and seriously consider his offer.

But Travers has ideas of her own, and she maintains “I won’t have her turned into one of your silly cartoons.” The author also has several conditions Walt Disney must agree to before she even considers handing over the film rights: No musicals, no animation, and no Dick Van Dyke.

And that’s just for starters.

For much of the movie, Travers treats Wal Disney and the other filmmakers like they’re beneath her. But tis not because she’s an evil woman at all. Travers is very protective of her creations, and she feels nobody understands her, or the story she was trying to tell in her books. To help us understand why P.L. Travers behaves this way, director John Lee Hancock uses flashbacks to tell her story.

The flashbacks take us to Australia in 1906, when 7-year-old Travers—born Helen Lyndon Goff, (Played by Annie Rose Buckley) was relocated to a remote outback town with her two younger sisters, overwhelmed mother, and loving though deeply alcoholic banker father (Colin Farrell). Here, we witness how Ginty, as she is called by her father, got her knack for storytelling and her maturity.

I would say about 50 percent of the film is told in flashback. That’s a lot fo any movie, but each flashback sequence was used to help the story along, it worked perfectly. Watching the film, I was equally invested in both stories, so kudos to John Lee Hancock for making it work.

The acting is phenomenal, and not just by Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson. Although Hanks doesn’t look or sound anything like like Walt Disney,  he’s instantly likable, and I completely bought into Hanks being Walt. Emma Thompson did what Emma Thompson always does: She was perfect. If she doesn’t get an Academy Award nomination, there is no justice in this world.

Paul Giamatti plays Ralph the driver, and he brought some great, yet subtle, humor to the movie. Jason Schwartzman, Bradley Whitford, and B. J. Novak star as the men responsible for the music in “Mary Poppins.” All their scenes are great, but my personal favorites were the scenes showing how “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” and “A Spoonful of Sugar” came to be.

However, the biggest surprise in “Saving Mr. Banks” was Colin Farrell. While I’ve always liked movies he’s starred in, I never once thought of him as an “actor.” I still can’t beleive how good he was in this movie, and I hope he’s able to land more roles like this.

“Saving Mr. Banks” is  PG-13, but just because this a Disney film, it doesn’t mean it’s all happy times.  You should think twice before taking young children to see Mr. Banks. There’s several dark moments in the film, like when Traver’s has to stop her mother from committing suicide.

In the end, this was a great movie, maybe one of the best dramas I’ve seen in years. This was one of those rare times when everything in the movie exceeded any expectations I may have had. I highly recommend checking out “Saving Mr. Banks.”

“Saving Mr. Banks” final score: 10