Tonight's new movie is Saving Mr. Banks, a "making of" movie about the making of Mary Poppins. I admit to expecting something fairly saccarine, between the subject matter and the fact that it was made by Disney itself. As it turns out the story is fairly dark. It seems that Walt Disney spent 20 years trying to convince PL Travers (Mary Poppins author) to sell him the rights to do the movie. Travers is a hard-to-like, misanthropic, sarcastic and apparently unhappy person with an awful childhood story about her incompetent, alcoholic, consumptive, dying father in the wilds of 1910 Australia. The source of the Mary Poppins character is a nannie brought into her home to deal with the situation. In the movie, Walt flies her to California and does the full court press, bringing her reluctantly into the production. Common knowledge informs us that the movie did get made and was a huge hit, but it was not easy getting Travers to consent and she was not really pleased with the movie.
Tom Hanks does a reasonably decent portrayal of Walt (he insisted on first names only), but most of the weight of drama is carried by PL Travers (played excellently by Emma Thompson), who insists on last names and formal titles and is a stickler for proper English manners, afternoon tea (with a spoonful of sugar) and who is horrified by the tackiness of Disneyland. Paul Giamatti is quite good as the limo driver who is assigned to drive her around and becomes the only person who actually befriends her without an agenda. I was surprised that something this painful and traumatic came directly from Disney. One guy in front of us in the theater came with two young kids and the questions to dad were like "why is that drunk man coughing up blood and crying...is he going to die?"...not the usual Disney fare.
Tom Hanks does a reasonably decent portrayal of Walt (he insisted on first names only), but most of the weight of drama is carried by PL Travers (played excellently by Emma Thompson), who insists on last names and formal titles and is a stickler for proper English manners, afternoon tea (with a spoonful of sugar) and who is horrified by the tackiness of Disneyland. Paul Giamatti is quite good as the limo driver who is assigned to drive her around and becomes the only person who actually befriends her without an agenda. I was surprised that something this painful and traumatic came directly from Disney. One guy in front of us in the theater came with two young kids and the questions to dad were like "why is that drunk man coughing up blood and crying...is he going to die?"...not the usual Disney fare.
Last edited by skizzerflake; 01-04-14 at 02:10 AM.