Deconstructing Disney – ‘Saving Mr. Banks’

Saving Mr. Banks

Mary Poppins, the iconic 1964 Disney musical film, was an adaptation of P.L. Travers’ series of children’s books, very loosely inspired by her difficult childhood growing up in Australia. Saving Mr. Banks, also made by Disney, is about the author’s (supposed) collaboration with Walt Disney on the picture and feels more like a loose adaptation of an inspiration along those lines than an actual recreation of any actual production.

Director John Lee Hancock’s workmanlike direction manages to entertain us with pop nostalgia and express Walt Disney’s magical essence wrapped in our sentimental memories of Mary Poppins. One scene set at a 1961 Disneyland is pretty aptly magical in how it revisits our own cultural touchstones.

Tom Hanks portraying the legendary figure, referred affectionately only as “Walt” by his colleagues, and Emma Thompson as the grumpy Travers make a likeable and charming enough odd couple playing off each other effectively. Their dysfunctions and combativeness are played for laughs only hinting at lingering feelings of bitterness and resentment. However, the standout is Colin Farrell’s dynamic portrayal in parallel narrative flashbacks as Traver’s joyous and larger than life yet troublemaking alcoholic father (a figure not entirely unlike Walt Disney himself).

Despite offering an amusing, heartwarming look at old Hollywood, it’s difficult to divorce the film from the real-life people and facts, particularly Travers’ continued disdain for Disney until her death. It features more than just a glossed over or happy Disney feeling as it satisfies the studio making a film about its own history.

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