Barely Poppins

Rating: 6/10 (3 January 2014)

Saving Mr. Banks is the story about the making of the Disney classic, Mary Poppins. And just as that film sentimentalized P. L. Travers' children's novel, so does this film sugarcoat the true behind-the-scenes scenario. By the tablespoonful!
No, this film treatment doesn't make it go down any easier. There is no genuine dramatic tension as Saving Mr. Banks simplifies its tale by constantly cleansing the facts for more wholesome family enjoyment. The script by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith melds two stories unsuccessfully. It presents Mrs. Travers' troubled childhood memories set in Australia, 1901 with her displeasure at having her novel become a major Walt Disney musical extravaganza in Los Angeles, 1964. Neither story quite gels. Mrs. T. may have had daddy issues, but director John Lee Hancock never has a real grasp of the facts or the fiction. The direction is stilted and heavy-headed as facts are treated with melodramatic flourish and never fully presented or realized.*
Generally speaking, the acting is good. Emma Thompson plays the uptight author with a determined haughtiness and ongoing petulance that gives her character some nuance. Tom Hanks' Uncle Walt is less of the clever manipulative businessman and too much of the sweet Grandpa type. Their relationship, which was and should have been more volatile, is downplayed and lacking the needed "gravitas"' as P. L. Travers would have said. Providing that gravitas is Colin Farrell as the author's alcoholic father. The actor gives especially fine support along with the always dependable Paul Giamatti, Bradley Whitford, and B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman as the songwriting team known as the Sherman Brothers.
Saving Mr. Banks does hold one's interest, especially when it stays within the problems involved with the making of the Disney classic film. The film is always entertaining and interesting fodder, but a classic for the Disney vault it ain't! GRADE: B-
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* NOTE: Just one example of playing loose with the facts: Mrs. Travers disliked the finished Disney version of her novel, although her reaction to the film at its premiere is precisely the opposite effect than Saving Mr. Banks indicates.