Critics Miss the Point

Rating: 8/10 (29 April 2014)

There have been complaints about this film on the basis of historically inaccuracies ranging from the dialogue between Disney and Mrs. Travers, the relationship between Mrs. Travers and the studio to the simple motif of Mrs. Travers dancing with the writers. This film is not an historical document, rather a story about an author, her book and a studio. The film portrays the Mary Poppins books as an attempt by Mrs. Travers to rescue a version of her father and give him a better story than life provided him, a point made touchingly by her bursting into tears in- front of the writing staff due to her perception that they had made Mr.Banks 'unspeakably awful'. The writers return the following day with a changed ending, one where father went kite flying with the kids and they were together as a family. Abstracted from the history of events, this film is a charming depiction of two people with difficult childhoods forming an uneasy friendship through a tortuous collaboration. In reality, Mrs. Travers never did let go of her father or her books and had a poor relationship with the family that survived her; what sense of hope or satisfaction would an audience derive from such an ending? I would like to think that this isn't weakness or evasion, but Disney's way of trying to give the relationship between itself and Mrs. Travers the parity and respect in film that it deserved to have in life.