Pointless and depressing

Rating: 1/10 (21 July 2017)

The main plot is about Walt Disney trying to make the Mary Poppins movie. Disney had to get rights from the novels' author, an unpleasant woman named Helen Goff who went by the pen name of PL Travers. Thompson plays Travers as an über-British, frosty, frigid spinster who hated everything about the movie and spread misery around her.
The secondary plot explains why Travers was such a b—tch. She had a traumatic childhood and her alcoholic, banker father died when she was 7. Therefore, the big revelation is that Mary Poppins is not actually about Mary, but about Mr. Banks who stands for Travers's father and get a happy ending instead of dying young. What it is not explained is why a childhood movie is about bankers and why it is titled Mary Poppins, since Mary is actually a secondary character.
Moreover, the revelation about Travers's past does not excuse her. Travers' miserable childhood does not make her more sympathetic. More misery is added by a scene during which Disney trades stories of his own miserable childhood, trying to get Travers on board - or maybe to prove that even an unhappy child can grow into a happy adult...
Disney did not invite her to the premiere of Mary Poppins and I can fully understand his uneasiness about having this controlling and ungrateful woman around, to spread more misery.
The whole story was not worth a movie, especially not a very long one as this. The Disney- Travers relationship is unpleasant from start to finish (he is manipulative, she is stubborn and unyielding). The father-daughter history is very depressing.