Saving Mr. Banks
review by
ANIZ FILMVALA
*****
CRITIC VIEW.
Saving Mr. Banks is an excellent tribute to the Disney
legacy with admirable performances by Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks.
An insightful
journey created by director John Lee Hancock how Walter Disney (Tom Hanks) negotiates
with Pamela Travers (Emma Thompson) urging her to give rights for the Mary
Poppins stories to be created on screen [the scene’s of dealings communication are
amazing].
The film has some enchanting drama and beautiful picturesque of the
gone era captured very meticulously taking care of every minuscule details of
the 60’s and 70’s period.
Saving Mr. Banks is an entertaining visual rendering of incompatible
creative disposition in a battle to win over each other’s disagreement.
It’s
not so very family entertainment as Disney movies are but is a delightful take
on the Disney’s own process of making movies and their path breaking Hollywood cinema.
Farrell’s fans are in for a major disappointment as this is
the most unpleasant performances to date.
Over and above it’s a feel-good film.
STORY.
In London, 1961, Pamela "P. L." Travers (Emma
Thompson), struggling financially, has reluctantly agreed to travel to Los
Angeles, to meet and negotiate with Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) at the urging of
her agent (Ronan Vibert). Disney has been courting Travers for twenty years,
seeking to acquire the film rights to her Mary Poppins stories. His daughters fell
in love with Travers' books, and made him promise to make a film based on them.
Travers, however, has been extremely cool toward letting Disney bring her
creation to the screen, mainly because he is primarily known as a producer of
animated films.
Through flashbacks, Travers’ youth in Australia in 1906 is
depicted, and shown to be the inspiration for much of Mary Poppins. Travers’
handsome and charismatic father Travers Robert Goff (Colin Farrell), fighting a
losing battle against alcoholism, was very close to Travers, whom he nicknamed
Ginty.
Upon her arrival in Los Angeles, Travers is disgusted by
what she feels is the city’s unreality, as well as by the naïve optimism and
intrusive friendliness of its inhabitants, personified by her assigned limo driver,
Ralph (Paul Giamatti).
At the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Travers begins
collaborating with the creative team assigned to develop Mary Poppins for the
screen, screenwriter Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford) and music composers Richard
and Robert Sherman (Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak respectively). She finds
their presumptions and casual manners highly improper. Meeting Disney in
person, Travers is similarly struck; he is jocular and familiar from the start,
but she remains unfriendly.
Travers’ working relationship with the Mary Poppins creative
team is difficult from the outset, with her insisting that Mary Poppins is the
enemy of sentiment and whimsy. She complains that the script is not rooted in
reality and dramatically discards it out a window. Walt Disney attempts a
personal intervention, with mixed results. Disney and his associates are
puzzled by Travers’ disdain for fantasy, an inexplicable stance given the
highly fantastical nature of the Mary Poppins story, as well as Travers’ own
richly imaginative childhood existence, as portrayed via ongoing flashbacks.
Travers has particular trouble with the team’s depiction of George Banks, head
of the household in which Mary Poppins is employed as nanny. In an outburst
directed against the film’s creative team, Travers describes Banks’
characterization as completely off-base and leaves the room distraught. The
studio team begin to grasp how deeply personal the Mary Poppins stories are to
Travers, and how many of the work’s characters are directly inspired by
individuals from Travers’ own past.
Travers' collaboration with the Mary Poppins creative team
continues, although she is increasingly disengaged as painful memories from her
past numb her in the present. Disney intervenes again, inquiring as to what’s
been troubling her and suggesting the two of them go to Disneyland together as
a tonic. The visit to Disneyland, along with Travers’ unexpected developing
friendship with her limo driver, and the creative team’s revisions to the
character of George Banks and insertion of a new song to end the film combine
to soften Travers. Her imagination begins to reawaken, and she engages with the
creative team enthusiastically.
This progress is upended, however, when Travers realizes
that an animation sequence is planned for the film. Travers has been adamant
from the beginning that any animated sequences would be unacceptable. She
confronts and denounces a protesting Disney, angrily declares she will not sign
over the film rights and returns to London. Disney then discovers that Travers
is writing under a pen name; her real name is Helen Goff, and she’s actually
Australian, not British. Equipped with new insight, he departs for London on
the next flight, determined to salvage the film. Appearing unexpectedly at Travers’
residence, Disney opens up—describing his own less-than-ideal childhood, while
stressing the healing value of his art—and urges her to shed her deeply-rooted
disappointment with the world. Travers relents and grants him the film rights.
Three years later, in 1964, Mary Poppins is nearing its
world premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Travers has not been invited
though, because Disney fears that she will give the film negative publicity.
Goaded by her agent, Travers returns to Los Angeles, showing up uninvited in
Walt Disney’s office, and finagles an invitation to the premiere. She watches
Mary Poppins initially with scorn, reacting with particular dismay during the
animated sequence. She slowly warms to the film, however, and is ultimately surprised
to find herself overcome by emotion, touched by the depiction of George Banks’
redemption, which clearly possesses a powerful personal significance for her.
CAST.
Emma Thompson as
Pamela "P. L." Travers, author of Mary Poppins
Annie Rose Buckley as
a young P. L. Travers,
Helen Goff, nicknamed Ginty
Tom Hanks as Walt
Disney
Colin Farrell as
Travers Robert Goff
Pamela's mother Paul
Giamatti as Ralph
Pamela's chauffeur Bradley Whitford as Don
DaGradi
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