Justifying the artist's demands.

Rating: 7/10 (17 May 2016)

An unhappy woman becomes a smashing success thanks to the publication of what is now a children's classic. Like many artists, she seemed to abhor fame and when Hollywood beckoned, she declined. Well, at least with the creator of the allegedly happiest place on earth. The woman was the Austrian born P.L. Travers, her boss to be Walt Disney, and her leading character a nanny almost as prickly as her who was known as Mary Poppins.
It should be noted that the first production of Mary Poppins anywhere was a television version starring character actress Mary Wickes back in 1949. Ironically, right before the movie first went into production, Wickes posed for artist drawings for Cruella Deville in "101 Dalmatians". That was an the animated film, and P.L. Travers wanted no part of animation for her story.
She showed up in Los Angeles in 1961 already copping an attitude, and her first meeting with Disney, songwriters the Sherman Brothers and the screenwriters and director did not go off well in the least. But as the Disney magic begin to roll in, this Travers focus on her life as a little girl, her family problems and incidents which she would later utilized in creating her classic stories. Some of the flashbacks slow the film down completely, but her character would not really be understandable had they been omitted.
Honestly, I liked the character of P.L. Travers, here played by the glorious Emma Thompson portrayed with a prickly look like "Wicked Witch of the West" Margaret Hamilton. She is certainly not fond of little children, being rather aggravated by the presence of tons of teddy bears and other stuffed animals in her hotel room. She's rather curt with children when she meets them and even at Disneyland won't sign autographs. But in spite of all of that, there is something underneath the surface that shows the sad little girl, and because of that I was able to like her in spite of her being a tremendous grouch. When she during her first hearing of "Let's Go Fly a Kite", it is a magical moment just like the many that Disney provided over its glory years.
I must admit, however, that Tom Hanks simply seems to be playing Tom Hanks, vaguely made up to resemble Walt Disney but really not coming like him from my memory of original building of the wonderful world of Disney back during the Glory Days of my own childhood. That is a minor complaint, because I have seen many other portrayals of real-life figures that were even further away than from what Hanks does with Walt.
When Emma Thompson is on screen, the film truly shines and its success is due in the most part to her very detailed performance which is like nothing she had played every before. The conclusion of her story is sad, and her involvement with the much later stage version rather prickly as well, but what results is a fascinating story of great Hollywood history that minus the flaws was quite an achievement. In a sense, I liked it more than then the film which I think today is highly overrated, and certainly much more than the overblown version that came to Broadway in the middle of the first decade of the millennium.