Superb phenomenal brilliant wonderful movie! (:

Rating: 10/10 (15 December 2013)

A+! Wish I could give it more than a 10! Let's start with Emma Thompson's tour-de-force comedy performance as Mrs. Travers. I think this is the best work she has done since "Howard's End", and she has been wonderful in so many movies and television projects since then; she hits every right note! I hope the Academy has the good sense to nominate her for Best Actress (Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson and one other actress TBD, as far as I'm concerned).
Colin Farrell is brilliant as Travers Goff, Helen's (Pamela's) alcoholic father, who works at a bank in the Australian outback. The Australian scenes were strange to me at first, but grew on me, and made sense by the end of the picture just fine. The camera work is absolutely astounding! The little girl is terrific, and so is everyone else in the flashback scenes. The costumes, sets, writing...everything is brilliant! Tom Hanks is terrific in a supporting performance as Walt Disney. He doesn't sound or look all that much like the real Walt but he is still quite good. His long speech at the end works effectively.
Paul Giammatti plays Ralph, Mrs. Travers Hollywood driver during her stay there working on the screenplay with the Disney team. He was quite touching. He's an actor I don't usually like but I like his work here.
The use of the music from Mary Poppins, the actual scenes from the movie, the film editing...everything works! (: John Lee Hancock deserves an Oscar nomination as Best Director - doubt he will get one, since he isn't well known, but he deserves one for the fluidity of the scenes, the meshing of the different components, and the fact that the film is a drama and yet has a comedic masterpiece of acting at it's center.
I loved everything about this movie! A+!!!!