Well one of my best friends Meg always loved to bring this movie up non-stop when it was just coming out, what with her being a bigger Disney nerd then I will ever be. So it seemed logical that we saw it together when it came out, so here's Saving Mr. Banks
Plot: For the past 20 years, Walt Disney has been trying to gain the rights to make the movie Mary Poppins from the author of the books P. L. Travers. Eventually Travers agrees to take a trip to meet with Disney (or just Walt) and hear out his plans for an adaption of the film. Meanwhile the film gives a series of flashbacks showing Travers' childhood.
While I didn't love it as much as Meg predictably did, I would stand by with saying that it is a good movie. It was very enlightening to watch them try to tell this story of what was happening during the making of Mary Poppins. How Walt Disney and his team we're trying to come up with all these ideas and how they slowly collaborated with Travers despite their very separate visions on the project. But at the same time they're trying to show us part of how the Mary Poppins books had to do with Travers' childhood with her relationship with her father. And that's what makes the film enlightening more and more as the film goes on. Even if it takes a while before they begin to give us what Disney and Travers where trying to ultimately do while working on the film, it pays off very, very well when you begin to grasp the meaning of the title of this film. In fact, it's inspiring me to watch Mary Poppins again and use what I learned from this film to help me see it in a completely new light. The cast is entertaining to watch; Tom Hanks - while doesn't quite look the part of Walt Disney (or at least not for me personally) but he held his own pretty well in trying to bring the character to life. But the real focus is really on Emma Thompson as P.L. Travers. True, there were a lot of references to Disney and his films from his studio, to some of the music playing some familiar Disney tunes, to even Disneyland itself. But at the end of the day this was Travers' story more then it was both her and Disney's story, and Thompson did a great job giving us the character. Even though I can't see her winning, I don't think if would be much of a surprise if she at least was nominated for her role. My only really big problem with the film is that it is a little predictable. Not to the point that it was completely cheesy, but it was giving us some very familiar beats in telling a story. But again, none of it was done in a way where it ruined the film. In fact, on top of having some decent funny moments, it was also kind of heartstrings-pulling at times. There were a couple times where my eyes where getting watery from some of the scenes during the very end of the film.
And that's my review for Saving Mr. Banks. It has it's predictability, but it's nevertheless a good film that was very well acted and smartly constructed with who to really focus on, and gives us a very enlightening point of view of the making of Mary Poppins and what Disney and Travers tried to do with it. It certainly has encouraged me to watch Mary Poppins again and look at it in a completely new light then how I've ever looked at it before. How does this turn out? Join me in the review after the next one.
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