Saving Mr. Banks

****
Release Date: November 29th 2013

Author P. L. Travers reflects on her difficult childhood while meeting with filmmaker Walt Disney during production for the adaptation of her novel, Mary Poppins.

Director: John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, The Alamo, The Rookie)

Staring: Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Bradley Whitford, B. J. Novak, Jason Schwartzman

Whoever thought the Disney film Mary Poppins would have such a gripping background as to how P. L. Travers, the author of the said book, struggled with letting her work come to life.

Travers, played by the outstanding Emma Thompson, is the most stubborn character on screen that you'll have ever seen for a long time. She finds it hard to comes to grips with her financial status, and eventually agrees with her agent that she needs to make money quickly.

So off on a plane she goes to Los Angeles, to meet the illustrious Walt Disney (Tom Hanks). Disney's fellow workers Don Dagradi (Whitford) and the Sherman brothers (Novak & Schwartzman) try to collaborate with Travers on a script, but with Travers changing things left, right and centre and profusely recording every session, the team are constantly tip-toeing around her so that she doesn't hesitate handing over the rights to Walt.

This all works well, with the occasional laugh here and there. The dry humour is constantly disrupted by flashbacks of her gloomy past. Travers' present is plagued by her nostalgic memories of her father (executed by the excessively cheesy Colin Farrell) going on the downward spiral. This breaks the fine mould that Travers has, never quite knowing whether it wants its audience to be happy or sad. You'll always sit in the middle.

Hanks does a great job in a supporting role, right off the back of Captain Phillips, but this is not his for the taking. Thompson is unequalled. She goes from relentless and single mindedness to becoming an open book with added spurts of kindness. Travers is a difficult character to sympathise with at the beginning, but nearer the end her compassion is undeniably heartwarming.

Overview: It's nice to see variety from Disney Studios. Something other than the usual conventions in a Disney film will be greatly appreciated. Saving Mr. Banks would make for a great feel-good film if not for its sporadic sadness.