Not a bad film

Rating: 7/10 (11 January 2014)

Not an easy film to make and overall, I felt it was done well. The scenes of Pamela as a child were my favourite. As an Australian they felt authentic to me. The acting was beautiful and the cinematography was gorgeous. Pamela's father isn't made out to be a terrible person just because he's an alcoholic. He's a real charmer and a loving father, someone with an artistic soul who is obviously very unsuited to being a bank manager. Making the adult Pamela out to be such a vicious old hag is confronting: was she really that bad? Emma Thompson is perfect for the role and she is very funny, but it's an unforgiving, sometimes one dimensional portrait, much like Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. Admittedly, the Americans are also mocked mercilessly through Pamela's eyes - not being able to make tea properly; the flashiness of Disneyland; LA people preferring to drive and not walk; the terrible food Disney's assistant keeps serving. Tom Hanks does Walt Disney quite well. Several scenes are really interesting, such as when Disney talks about his childhood, and reveals he was, early in his career, in a similar position to Pamela in not wanting to hand over creative control of his characters. The film can be enjoyed on quite a superficial level, but it did also have a few things to say, such as how things that happen in childhood can stay with us the rest of our lives; and how Mary Poppins derived from Pamela trying to deal with her sad childhood - to reinvent it and resolve it. The film also depicts the tensions surrounding how films are made -- the Mary Poppins composers the Sherman brothers saw the project as a way to express themselves, by building their own creation, based on Pamela's story but not following it slavishly. Whereas Pamela expects her work won't be changed, and both parties cannot understand the other side's point of view.