You won't see the familiar disclaimer 'based on a true story' at the beginning of 'Saving Mr. Banks', perhaps because if a movie tackled the complete relationship between icon Walt Disney (played here by Tom Hanks) and 'Mary Poppins' writer P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), it wouldn't make for much of a 'feel good' flick. Instead, what we get here is more sanitized version of the truth, with some effort by the filmmakers to humanize one of the leads. No, I'm not talking about Walt – I'm talking about Travers herself, who was reportedly even more harsh and abrasive than this movie portrays her.
As 'Saving Mr. Banks' begins, we learn that Travers has agreed to consider signing over the rights to 'Mary Poppins' to Disney, but is having second thoughts about the meeting. She has Disney's promise that she will have final say before anything gets approved for the film, which leads to much heartache among the preproduction crew once Travers arrives in Los Angeles. She insists that the film not be a musical, not feature any animation, and don't even get her started about Dick Van Dyke.
The movie reveals in flashback sequences why Travers is so opposed to anyone changing the basic themes of her original story. We see her as a young girl (played by Annie Rose Buckley) in Australia having to cope with a father (Colin Farrell) that loves her very much, but also is struggling with a horrible addiction to alcohol that leads to one disastrous event after another for their family.
'Saving Mr. Banks' deviates the most from the actual story towards the second half of the film, where Travers begins to soften up in her hatred of the new movie, and ol' Walt and his staff slowly start winning her over. In the film's best scene (which actually never happened in real life), Disney flies to England to talk to Travers (who has abandoned the movie) and tells her a story about his strict father and his upbringing in Kansas City. The story about Walt's father is reportedly true – the idea that he ever told Travers such a thing is not (and Walt never flew overseas to see her). But this is, after all, a Disney movie, and characters have to have an arc and learn something about themselves before the credits roll. So, while Disney and Travers may have never really had that heart-to-heart talk with each other, and while Travers may have never really been happy with the 'Mary Poppins' movie, the film did get made, which at least indicates there was some meeting of the minds on both sides to make it happen.
As a whole, I have rather mixed feelings about the movie. Its primary problem is that, because we already know the outcome (really, you don't think 'Mary Poppins' is going to get made?!), there's very little in terms of suspense on part of the viewer. The big question then becomes why Travers is so opposed to others tinkering with her story, and that's pretty much given away by the movie's title. Therefore, we're only left with the (quite excellent) performances by Hanks and Thompson, which are a joy to watch – but ones where we're also always aware of what the eventual outcome is going to be.
While every scene that Hanks and/or Thompson is in is fun, not so impressive (at least from a storytelling standpoint, since the cinematography is beautiful) are all the flashbacks that involve Colin Farrell's character. I've never been a huge fan of Mr. Farrell as an actor, and while his performance here is serviceable, I'm not sure such a big chunk of the movie should have been dedicated to his story. It's not hard to figure out what's going to happen in the flashbacks or what their purpose in the movie are, so had they been cut in half, I think 'Saving Mr. Banks' could have been a much stronger film. There are very few instances in the movie where during the flashback scenes I didn't want to get back to what was going on with Disney and Travers as soon as possible.
'Saving Mr. Banks' is certainly a watchable film. The problem is, I'm not sure how 'rewatchable' the movie is, which makes it really hard to give it a recommendation. Fans of Disney history will certainly eat this one up, as it's loaded with the kind of attention to detail of the studio's history that die-hards will love. Taken as a whole, though, I think for most potential viewers the route here is to rent the movie first and make a purchasing decision later.
