A Deep Fusion of Genres

Rating: 9/10 (16 January 2019)

23 January 2014. The biggest question about Saving Mr. Banks is even how to describe it. There doesn't seem to be any single word or even several words that captures this movie. It doesn't easily fit a movie genre or category. The fascinating weaving of past and present unfolds a movie that is a mystery, a comedy, a drama, a psychological thriller, a historical biographical, a period piece, that incorporates music numbers, relational themes, family, and even alcoholism.
The movie offered a well edited, weaving of past and present that seamlessly enhanced the movie. This multi-layered, substantively faceted movie was rich with subtexts and deeper emotional and cognitive insight. In some ways, Saving Mr. Banks is unique in its rich delivery and depiction of the human condition, using historical facts, imagination, and popular myth to create an apparently serious magical experience.
While no movie might be directly compared to Saving Mr. Banks, this movie retains or captures the tone or some of the qualities of such movies as Finding Neverland (2004), a Johnny Depp vehicle where fantasy and reality collide in a bittersweet love story about the man who wrote Pan Peter; The Weatherman (2005), a strong drama about a television weather man played by Nicolas who is going through the disruptive experience of divorce, his attempts a reconciliation, coping with challenging children, and a father played by Michael Caine who himself undergoes a life-altering experience; Moliere (2007), a French produced period comedy drama that provides laugh at in a layered movie about the comedy actor who must disguise himself at a rich man's estate and deal with a love interest at the same time; Punch-Drunk Love (2002), a new type of love story starring Adam Sandler and Emily Watson; and Hitchcock (2012),a movie that provokes visceral, intense human emotions of sorrow, fear, passion, and redemption packaged in a movie premised around a horror film.
Emma Thompson's performance is of particular note for her portrayal of Mrs. Traver's who wrote Mary Poppins. Her character performance under the direction of John Lee Hancock was memorable for the delicate balance between the nastiness and unpersonable personality such depicts and the more appealing nature of the overall tone and theme of the movie. Meryl Streep accomplished as much in The Devil Wears Prada (2006).