SAVING MR. BANKS (Rated PG-13)
Tom Hanks can do just about anything. He’s convincing whether stranded on an island with a volleyball as his only companion, or playing a real life character like Captain Phillips facing off against marauding Somali pirates.
Playing the part of Walt Disney as the avuncular head of a major studio would be a challenge for anyone. But Hanks is more than up to the task in “Saving Mr. Banks,” a factually based account of the making of “Mary Poppins.”
One should not be fooled into believing that the story of how Walt Disney courted prickly author P.L. Travers into letting him option the rights to Mary Poppins to bring the beloved character to the big screen is geared to a younger audience.
This is not to say that “Saving Mr. Banks” is an unwholesome film not in keeping with the great Disney tradition.
The audience needs to be aware that this is not some sort of fairytale, but rather a warts-and-all look at troubling aspects of an author’s upbringing and the clash of strong willed people trying to make a film.
For 20 years, Disney wanted to secure the rights to turn “Mary Poppins” into a musical starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, resulting in a film that was to become one of the classics in the Walt Disney Studio’s cinematic canon.
Author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), or Mrs. Travers as she preferred to be called and apparently wished to avoid knowing most everyone on a first-name basis, is a tightly-wound sourpuss, who reluctantly agrees to spend two weeks in Los Angeles in 1961.
Persuaded by her London financial advisor to consider Disney’s offer, Mrs. Travers journeys to the strange land of California, seemingly immune to pleasant weather and the sunny optimism of the locals.
Paul Giamatti, serving as her chauffeur, has a great small part in chipping away at Mrs. Travers’ hard-shelled facade.
Checking into the swank Beverly Hills Hotel, Mrs. Travers is overwhelmed with countless gift baskets and stuffed Disney character animals. She dispatches an oversized Mickey Mouse to sit facing the wall with an admonition to achieve a more subtle approach.
Things get more interesting when Mrs. Travers makes her first visit to the Disney Studio lot in Burbank, where she meets up with the creative team that would produce the film version of “Mary Poppins” if only the thorny British author would consent to an agreement.
Walt Disney is highly motivated to obtain the film rights if for no other reason than to honor a promise to his daughters that he would bring their favorite fictional nanny to the big screen, complete with musical numbers and flourishes of animated enhancements.
Despite the charm offensive launched by the smiling Walt Disney, Mrs. Travers is resolute in her opposition to certain things, such as the use of the color red and inserting animated penguins into a dance sequence with Dick Van Dyke, an actor she rejected as unsuitable for Julie Andrews.
Befitting her permanent scowl and trying disposition, Mrs. Travers strikes fear into the hearts of head writer Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford) and the composing duo of the Sherman brothers, Robert and Richard (B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman, respectively).
Though humorless and frosty by nature, Mrs. Travers, looking very much the part of an uptight British matron, delivers a constant stream of witty put-downs and clever one-liners while tormenting the Disney creative team with her dry observations and cultural objections to tinkering with the idealized version of the super nanny.
Flashbacks to Mrs. Travers’ childhood in the Australian outback in 1906, when she was known as Helen Goff, help to explain over a period of time the reason she is so relentlessly protective of the governess with whom she had a personal connection.
There’s sadness and sorrow in Travers’ early years, as she’s devoted to her loving father (Colin Farrell), an alcoholic struggling to hold his bank job as well as his sanity. Meanwhile, her distant and aloof mother offers little solace.
Eventually, recalling his own farm boy roots, Disney is able to connect with Travers’ troubled upbringing, forging a shaky bond. This works better than the trip to Disneyland, where Travers looks like a prisoner of war forced to endure loathsome indignities.
For all his effective depiction of an iconic figure, Tom Hanks really takes a back seat to Emma Thompson, who is not only brilliant as the fearsome, surly inspired writer but garners the lion’s share of the best dialogue.
“Saving Mr. Banks” is superior as an entertaining behind-the-scenes story of the film industry. A great cast proved absolutely essential to delivering the exceptional product. A spoonful of sugar wasn’t needed to make this entertainment go down smoothly.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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