An exemplary example of the complications of creation and collaboration.

Rating: Null/10 (21 December 2013)

P.L. Travers: No, no, no, no, no! "Responstible" is not a word! Richard Sherman: We made it up. P.L. Travers: Well, un-make it up. Richard Sherman: quickly hides sheet music to "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."
1964's Mary Poppins was as iconic as a film could get: its quirky songs were hummable, its language inventive("supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"--You get the idea), and the spirit of P.L. Travers' original work was enhanced through those songs and the ineffable magic of Walt Disney (Tom Hanks). Saving Mr. Banks chronicles Walt's 20 year courtship of the stodgy Brit author (Emma Thompson) for rights to the film.
Of course, the film is partly a promotion of "the happiest place on earth," (Disneyland) and partly a syrupy paean to the Disney goodness concept; however it is also a seemingly honest depiction of the difficulty Walt had convincing the conservative Travers to sign over the film rights. Half the fun is watching the songwriting brothers Sherman, playfully played by B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman, try to convince Travers (who had final say) that a spoonful of catchy tunes could translate her beloved Mary Poppins to the screen.
As director, John Lee Hancock assuredly navigates between Travers' hard life in Australia and the travails of creating a film, Saving Mr. Banks is as much about the challenges of creating popular art as it is about the challenges of bringing an author to deal with her work on film. Or more to the point, to deal with the memory of her charismatic, poetic, alcoholic father, whom Disney astutely, albeit late, sees as the center of Travers' ambivalence about giving her creation over to Disney.
No matter the accuracy of this version, when the author has the power to sign over rights or not, the producers' role is challenging and frustrating. Walt does not give up even if he has been at it for 20 years, and the film successfully shows why Disney is arguably the most powerful name in cinema.
To the film's credit, Travers remains a crusty Brit to the end, no Hollywoodized version of a convert to Disney Studio's sweetness, and Walt is as I remembered him: avuncular and determined to bring happiness and goodness to the world, especially children, through art. See this film to get the challenges of popular art and the supremacy of goodness and a belief in something like a miraculous nanny.