A triumph

Rating: 9/10 (28 December 2013)

This was a nearly perfect film - in the same way that The King's Speech and The Artist were nearly perfect films: drawn with an eye for cues large and small, in touch with its audience, and a pitch-perfect treatment of the material. There is no missed opportunity here, no overacting, no underacting - we were led into the world of this film, there to come to know and care about its players.
This is a documentary played for drama and comedy. We get pulled in to the early small and large concepts that eventually made the film Mary Poppins great - the wry look, the sly look, the pencil captures, the effect of music, all perfectly blended.
While I did deduct a star for Ms. Travers' loving and conciliatory embrace of a Mickey Mouse plush toy, I did that more to be a realist: I mean, nothing's really "perfect", is it? As to objections you may have read about, disregard: --"not all details were precisely true" - In reducing weeks and years of many human lives to two hours, creative license has to be deployed to make sure the narrative holds together. The near-perfection of this narrative demonstrates that creative license was well used.
--"Tom Hanks didn't get Disney's accent right" - Walt Disney had an accent? I think of the many legacies Walt left us, memory of an accent is not one of them. Next.
--"Some of the plush toys depicted were not actually Disney's under license yet." We did not go to see this movie to keep track of plush toy licensing rights.
--"P.L. Travers had a vision of Mary Poppins and Disney wrecked it." Had Disney not "wrecked it," P. L. Travers, Mary Poppins, Mrs. Travers' deep love for her flawed father would all now have been forgotten, entirely off our radar. Disney made immortal what Mrs. Travers most loved, something that would never have happened had Mrs. Travers not signed over the rights.
--"The title should have mentioned Mary Poppins and Walt Disney, otherwise people don't know what it's about and box office will suffer." Yes, and can you imagine the reaction of those people showing up and complaining that they thought this was going to be "just like Mary Poppins"? Nine stars. Brilliant. Simply brilliant film-making.