Interesting but Not Magical

Rating: 7/10 (2 January 2014)

With the Oscar-studded cast, Saving Mr. Banks hits the screen with high expectations. Emma Thompson plays author P. L. Travers who negotiates throughout the film with Walt Disney, played by Tom Hanks, for the rights to a Mary Poppins adaptation.
Disney has made a promise to his daughters to bring Travers' book to the screen, and he has been hectoring her for 20 years. Travers' fortunes are waning as the story begins, and faced with the prospect for losing her home in England, she has reluctantly agreed to go to Hollywood to monitor efforts to bring her book to the screen. She does not respect or trust Hollywood or Walt Disney, and she has managed to retain the final say on every detail of the story. Therein lies the conflict in this story. The Disney team of writers and music composers must dance to her every whim. She makes impossible demands of them, and she dismisses ideas for seemingly irrational, but deeply personal, reasons.
Throughout the creative process in Hollywood, she experiences flashbacks to her youth in Australia. Her childhood was not ideal, but she has created a fantasy of her past in her writing. She fears that her fantastical view of her life will not translate well to the screen. In the process of rejecting the ideas of the creative team, she drives everyone crazy. Emma Thompson is one of the world's finest actresses, but this story puts her in the position of being a one trick pony. She has but one look for the camera for most of the film - bemused skepticism. She wears out her collaborators, but she begins to wear out the audience as well. The theme of "sticking it to Hollywood" wears a little thin. Furthermore, since the audience knows that Mary Poppins became a reality, there isn't a lot of suspense about how this story will end.
Hanks does a good job as Disney, but, Disney must have been a more complex man than he is portrayed in this film.
This story is about how the author reconciles her past with her written fantasies. There are many pleasant and entertaining scenes which make the film enjoyable enough, but this isn't a great movie.