Saving Mrs P.S Travers

Rating: 9/10 (15 January 2017)

...or "uncovering Mary Poppins" would perhaps be a more appropriate title for this great film. If nothing else, this would certainly be much better than the stupid and totally irrelevant one the film had in my country ( "The magic umbrella") associating in a most naive and superficial way this touching psychological drama with W. Disney's "Mary Poppins". Perhaps that's why i did not care to watch it till yesterday, thinking that i have had enough of magic umbrellas in my childhood. I never thought that the film had nothing to do with "Mary Poppins" as a fairy tale and her magic umbrella itself, but it was instead focusing on uncovering the real drama that inspired the good witch's story. In this movie we actually watch two,at first glance irrelevant to each other, stories. One that took place in the beginning of last century in Australia and one that takes place in the beginning of the -60's when Mrs Travers, the author of "Mary Poppins" tries to come in terms with W. Disney about how the book would be transformed into a movie. Though it's difficult to understand at the very beginning why she is so unbearably stubborn and insisting on how the characters of the book would be shown and illustrated in the film and overall about the film itself, soon, as her own life's story unfolds making clear what her fairy-tale's characters really represent, her attitude and her almost repulsive behavior become more understandable and she herself more likable and compassionable. After all for many of us our childhood's demons are still a part of our life, consciously or subconsciously controlling and influencing our personalities and we all have a Mr Banks or an Elias Disney (Walt's "demon") to save/make up with, don't we? The film is really good and exciting to watch. Perhaps the excellent revival of the sixties and its characters contribute a lot to this. And of course the revival of these characters through the great performances of -my beloved- Emma Tomson in a "contra role"-that is to say a role we are not used to seeing her in- as a typical aging English shrew, as well as that of Tom Hanks (great as Walt Disney) and the rest of the cast, make this revival absolutely convincing. In Brief, "saving Mr. Banks" is a really good, truthfully tender and touching film which does deserve your attention!