I Was Quite Touched

Rating: 9/10 (15 January 2016)

I don't know what the truth is. I decided long ago to not see movies as historical documents. If that were the case we would dismiss about 95 percent of those films that feature historical figures. I had the misfortune to see "American Sniper" this past week. If you want to see something playing around with the truth, watch that. Yet there is all this adulation going on. This is a human film which extrapolates a series of events that involved obtaining the movie rights to Mrs. P. L.Travers' book "Mary Poppins." She is brought in from Engliand and does everything she can to keep from releasing her baby to the movie mogul Disney. But where this turns into a nice film is the back story. There are intermittent flashbacks to her childhood where she doted on her father, an alcoholic and dreamer. He has trouble with the real world and yet must live in it. He caused great pain to his wife and family but can't kick the disease. Mrs. Travers has become cynical and short and unkind over the years because she seems to have some self-loathing. The movie contains one scene after another where the producers and the writers must walk on eggshells around her. She is explosive and angry all the time. Only when she is alone, do we see her fragility. There were several moments in this film where I got tears. That happens to me so seldom. If the film was manipulative and somewhat inaccurate, they got me, and that's OK. Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks are wonderful as always.