Who could have expected a movie like this from Disney?

Rating: 9/10 (30 December 2013)

A Disney film about the making of Mary Poppins.I really wasn't sure whether I wanted to see this. However, I'm so glad I did. Director John Lee Hancock and his writers have unexpectedly given us a superb heart-warming drama about Helen Goff's coming to terms with the Disneyfication of Mary Poppins, a story (as we all now know) that reflected her youth on a farm near Allora, Queensland.
For Goff (a.k.a. "Pamela Travers"), the Mary Poppins story is inextricable from her memories and feelings about her beloved father. She needs the money, but she feels that only she understands the true meaning of Mary Poppins. She is terrified of how Disney will transform her storyand fail to do justice to her father's legacy. Departures from her original story, but especially the addition of music and animation, seem outrageous to her.
The theme is "letting go". This movie is actually a sophisticated, intelligent psychological drama. Because she is the adult child of an alcoholic, Goff carries much of the complicated emotional baggage that goes with that. Her feelings about her father are complex, deeply rooted and only half understood. The process of creating the movie, and dealing with Disney, draws her back to her childhood, connecting her to her inner child. The question is whether she can learn to live in the present.
I have to admit that, at both views four years apart, this movie moved me to tears -– but without being sappy or melodramatic. I hope this doesn't make the movie sound too heavy; the film is actually quite light in its feel, funny at times, and easy to digest. Surely though this is a film for adults.
Emma Thompson is the Oscar-worthy epicentre of this film, although the rest of the cast (especially Colin Farrell as her father and Tom Hanks as Walt Disney) certainly pull their weight. Emma Thompson's mastery of her profession shines through here.
I am not at all a Disney freak who walks around the theme parks with Micky Mouse ears. However, this movie has me -– four decades after I sat transfixed in the theatre watching Mary Poppins for the first time –- appreciating this company on a new, different level. This movie spoke directly to me. Yes, it is a Disney movie about a Disney movie, but it is also much more than that.