As true to life as Mickey Mouse

Rating: 3/10 (8 June 2014)

I normally avoid "based on a true story" or "historical" movies like the plaque. It is one of life's great enigmas that a movie "based on a true story" is generally more fictional than a movie based on a fictional work. In the later, by definition, everything about the fictional work is documented, in writing, 100%, and there can be absolutely no debate as to whether a movie is accurate or not to its source. On the other hand, a movie based on a true story may well be 98% fictional and no-one can prove if it's right or wrong. Basically, with a historical movie, the world is the screen-writer's oyster.
In the case of Saving Mr Banks we have a small number of historical facts. Walt Disney existed. PL Travers existed. PL Travers wrote a book. Walt Disney filmed it. The rest is pretty much pure conjecture. We might speculate that PL Travers was a difficult woman, and that maybe her childhood was the basis of her books, but frankly that is anyone's guess.
Anyway, onto the movie itself. There are a few good things about it. I was pleasantly surprised by Tom Hanks, who normally plays Tom Hanks and in all of his movies I have seen has not been called upon to do anything else. I liked the very subtle nuance of his accent, and his understated performance. Emma Thompson is annoying in most things she does, so it's a lucky break she gets to play an annoying character here. Paul Giamatti is a delight playing the only character with any warmth, depth and humanity - the irony here is that his character, the only one that seems "real" and sincere, is entirely fictional.
Really it's not much of a story, much ado about nothing. The back story about PL Travers childhood in Australia is a load of cobblers, a truckload of clichés and flights of fantasy piled on with a Caterpillar bulldozer. Take the mother's attempted "suicide" for instance. For reasons which are difficult to fathom, PL Traver's character, who one minute is 10 feet behind her mother, finds it necessary to go back and get her horse to follow her mother to the river. And what mother drags her child into the river. I mean, give us a break. And as for PL Travers magically coming out singing and dancing during "Let's go fly a kite", Heaven spare us.
To its credit I watched this movie to the end despite its many flaws, not so much because of the nominal "story" but in spite of it. In hindsight the reason I persisted is that it recreates a time in American history when things were simpler and when Disney created fantasies, for better or for worse, a time I am old enough to recognise. It is really only in this respect that the movie is historically accurate and kudos to the makers for at least getting that right. I also enjoyed relearning about the Sherman brothers, who, let's face it, contributed more to mankind than PL Travers ever did, and are surely candidates for the basis of a far more interesting movie than this one.