Julie Andrews, accepting her best actress Oscar for “Mary Poppins” in 1965, was overwhelmingly humble, though she only thanked one individual by name during her speech.
“I have so many thank-you’s,” Andrews said. “I only know where to start, and that’s with Mr. Walt Disney, and naturally, he has the largest thank-you of all.”
“Saving Mr. Banks” chronicles the creation of “Mary Poppins” from its creative team’s point of view and shows how appropriate that acknowledgement was. Without Walt Disney’s intrepid imagination, the part live-action, part animated delight – often heralded as one of the greatest films of all time – wouldn’t have come close to its historic end result.
Yet credit has to be given to the woman who started it all. P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) opens the film as a writer at her most reluctant, forced to travel to Los Angeles to negotiate with Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) the adaptation rights for her popular children’s book. She is terribly afraid of what Disney might do to her work and characters, symbolic representations of family and events that occurred during her childhood.
In the city of angels, her fears are fully realized. Disney attempts to coerce her into accepting several ideas that he had become known for over his past decades of work: He wishes to make “Mary Poppins” a musical, with numbers written by the trustworthy Sherman Brothers duo (Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak), as well as include sequences of animation that interact with main characters.
“Saving Mr. Banks” flashes back and forth between Travers’ childhood and the film’s production in the early 1960s. The anguish of a young Travers (Annie Rose Buckley) under the eye of her alcoholic, though overly loving, father (Colin Farrell) dramatically contrasts with scenes of the Sherman Brothers chipperly performing their works on the piano. Like the dramatic, comedic turns of “Mary Poppins,” the most ambitious scenes let emotional value and fun run high.
Each actor is a perfect fit for his or her character, from Thompson’s grumpy Englishwoman to Hanks’ aspiring mogul, Farrell’s self-deprecating money-earner to Paul Giamatti’s role as Travers’ charismatic chauffeur. When the above individuals are put in difficult situations, their grasp of each historical portrayal truly shines — Thompson cues her most chillingly upset demeanor while Hanks controls the weight of a man powerful enough to always get what he wants.
In a way, though, that’s also the biggest trouble with “Saving Mr. Banks”: Disney always gets what he wants. The film, in tried-and-true Disney fashion, is determined to wind itself to a happy ending regardless of the conflicts or historical contexts that stand in the way. Travers’ acceptance of many of the elements that made it into the final product of “Mary Poppins” happens without much explanation, several of them off screen entirely.
“Saving Mr. Banks” competes for the position of Disney’s most charming live-action effort since “Mary Poppins” itself, but lacks the magic (and dancing penguins, disappointingly) that made the 1964 film an entertainment masterpiece. Amid “Mary Poppins” references as blissfully fanciful as their source material and disheartening sequences of young Travers uncomfortably standing by as her family life depreciates, the film’s pace is stunted, desperate for the laughs that come when the cast gathers for another jaunty tune.
Nevertheless, “Saving Mr. Banks” overflows with the love that Mr. Disney provided to all his works as a resiliently endearing Easter egg about one of Hollywood’s greatest accomplishments. If Thompson is appropriately nominated for the same award that Andrews was nearly 50 years ago, she will succeed in further perfecting the legend, one that only the holiday season, spoonfuls of sugar and Disney can dream up.