A hate-love relationship.

Rating: 10/10 (23 December 2013)

If you aren't 50 yet, this film won't mean all that much to you. This is a film about the making of a film so beloved to children from a certain age. Certainly this isn't a new premise. What is new is the characters, fictional and living, who get our attention. We adored Walt Disney and loved the character of Mary Poppins.
A good rule of thumb when it comes to movies. If you want to see a movie, please don't read the book or other source material ahead of time. This movie is a dramatized version of the making of the psyche of P. Travers. License is taken. It is entertainment and not a documentary. Even so, it is well worth it.
Early on, I hated this film. It was unsettling. I had expected some sort of nostalgic, stuffed-animal hugging film about a curmudgeonly old lady who meets up against the greatly-admired and soft-hearted Walt Disney. I wasn't getting that.
What I saw was a dysfunctional family, alcoholism, strife, and a father who can't set fantasy aside long enough to keep himself employed and his family safe. On the other side was an entertainment giant who would not be denied in his quest to meet a promise to his children.
After a while, I noticed that I didn't hate this movie. And before it was over, long before, I began to love this film.
It is complicated. Walt Disney is neither saint nor sinner. He has a vision for entertainment that he is unwilling to compromise. But when he wants something, he will doggedly chase after it. Travers is more than just a prickly old lady. She is a loner who doesn't like children, is superstitious, and uncaring of anyone other than Mary Poppins.
Mary Poppins is a character created from her painful past to deal with her deep hurts. She is based on a real person. The books about Mary Poppins are fantasy. The movie made from the books is significantly different from Travers view of her past. She hates the movie not because it is untrue to her books (and it isn't). She hates the movie because it is not true to the character. Julie Andrew's Mary Poppins is light and airy. Travers' Mary Poppins is solid and protecting.
Certain other themes are touched upon briefly. Disney's smoking is referenced. Like Travers' father's drinking, it is a habit that helped kill him. Travers' sexual preferences are hinted at but not a word is spoken.
I suspect that part of the gulf that divides Travers from Disney is that Disney is the sort of father that Travers wanted. But while Disney was successful, long-lived, and faithful to his promises to his children, Travers' father over promised, over drank, and died early. The more Disney talks about his promise to his daughters, the deeper Travers' resentment seems to build. Disney wants to deliver a happy ending to his daughters and nothing will stop him. Travers' father didn't deliver and from this love-hate-disappointment seed grows the fictional Mary Poppins who comes and rights the world giving Travers the happy ending in literature that she did not get in real life.
In the end we see Travers in a sympathetic light. In reality, she was a mean old lady who hated the final product.
Walt Disney is the only person who gets what he goes after...a happy ending. Travers doesn't get the Mary Poppins she wanted either in real life or in film.
Acting is superb, by the way.