Fun little biography, though not without its faults

Rating: Null/10 (9 August 2014)

The worst and the best parts about Saving Mr. Banks intertwine a great deal. On the other hand, it's a delightful little tale about a woman learning to cope with her past and about the making of one of the best family films of all time. And yet, on the other hand, it looks at the past through rose-tinted glasses, ignores some of the uglier truths about what actually happened and is generally extremely cheesy and sugarcoated.
I'd still claim I liked this film. Emma Thompson makes for such a delightful P.L. Travers that it's hard not to sympathize with her, no matter how despicably awful she acts towards anyone else or no matter how difficult she's being over the smallest of things. Fantastic role performance all around.
The rest of the cast is likewise up to the task and wonderful, with perhaps the sole exception of Tom Hanks as Walt Disney. I'm not really sure what doesn't work here, but he seems to be perhaps a touch forced and overly jovial. This is pretty much the first time Walt Disney has ever been depicted on screen by the actual Disney Studios and you can definitely see they're trying to put their best foot forward with Hank's performance. Not that I'm saying the actual Walt Disney wasn't a kind and wonderful man with mountains of imagination and vision to share, but this character doesn't feel rounded enough to be a real person.
And yeah, it's kind of hard to see this movie when you know that the actual P.L. Travers hated the sole film based on her books and wanted nothing to do with Disney ever since. Of course there are some who say she actually grew to like it, and I can't really blame Disney of all studios trying to go with the optimistic version, but there's optimism and then there's naivety. It's really up to each to decide for himself or herself whether they find this twisting of circumstances and facts acceptable.
As a film Saving Mr. Banks is a lot of fun and filled with great role performances, good scenes and excellent storytelling. As a biography it leaves a lot to be desired, but you kind of knew that even without me telling you, didn't you.