Very captivating story of how Walt Disney eventually convinced P.L. Travers to let him make Mary Poppins.

Rating: Null/10 (19 April 2014)

Let me get this out of the way up-front, this movie is not necessarily an accurate account, even though it is based on real people and real events. It is about the difficulty Walt Disney had convincing author P.L. Travers to sell his studio the film rights to her book, to make "Mary Poppins." But from what I can tell by reading various articles some of the details are different from what actually happened. For example, much of the conceit of the movie is based on P.L. Travers not yet having signed over the rights to make the movie, and her going to Los Angeles to work with the writers was also to get her to sign. In reality she had already done so.
P.L. Travers was the pen name of the author, who was born as Helen Lyndon Goff in Australia in 1899. The movie starts in 1906 when she was 7, and during the 2-hours running time of the movie it flashes back often to her childhood. Her father's name was Travers Goff, an unsuccessful banker and an alcoholic who died young, and memories of her father had a lasting effect on his daughter. Her pen name was likely in memory of her father.
Emma Thompson is P.L. Travers and she plays her as a very severe and tactless person. She may have been a bit more fun-loving in real life, but in this movie she is very aggressive in having her own ideas incorporated into the movie script. In fact she insisted that discussions be tape recorded and we get to hear her actual voice during the end credits. She seemed to be pretty close to Thompson's portrayal.
Tom Hanks is good as genial Walt Disney, shown in this movie as being quite involved with the process of fleshing out the movie, but independent reports say he essentially turned it over to his own writers to work with Travers and had very little to do with it until the premiere.
The young Helen is a key character, showing her relationship with her father and her early poetry writing, and she is played very well by young Annie Rose Buckley as "Ginty", her father's pet name for her. Her dad is played by Colin Farrell as Travers Goff. Her mother is played by Ruth Wilson as Margaret Goff.
A fine actor, Paul Giamatti has a relatively small role as the limo driver, Ralph, but it adds a nice touch to the story.
In all my wife and I enjoyed the movie, it never seemed long and in fact the story is so interesting I found myself wishing it had gone on a bit longer. It may be a somewhat fictional re-telling of the story, but it is very well made and interesting.