Saving Mr. Banks

                                                             
                                                               

       If you were ever a kid, you have probably seen “Mary Poppins” at least once or more likely one thousand times.  It is one of those movies that captured your imagination as a kid. Before Disney got a hold of it and put it through a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious prism.  “Mary Poppins” was a set of popular children’s novels written by P.L. Travers. For what effect the movie had on so many generations, the novels had done the same for so many kids before that. “Saving Mr. Banks” is the story of those two worlds coming together and how a lady with an umbrella changed the lives of so many children.

      As a writer it is easy to write about something that you have experienced firsthand. You may change the names and places, but you leave in the heart and truth. When it came to “Mary Poppins” P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) didn’t treat her like a character in some book, she treated her like family. There was one man who saw the magic in that kind of treatment and that was Walt Disney (Tom Hanks). Disney fell in love with the character after being introduced to it by his daughters. For twenty years he chased Mrs. Travers, trying to let him bring her book to life on the big screen. Finally given the chance, Travers did everything in her power to make sure her vision of the character stayed intact and didn't become just another blink in the Disney Empire. What happens instead is Travers rediscovers who Mary Poppins really is and who she always was.

      Everyone remembers the great and powerful wizard from the “Wizard of OZ”. The question is once you saw behind the curtain, did the magic lose its luster? Every time you see a magic trick the first thing that goes through most people’s minds is “How did he do that?”  “Mary Poppins” was magic to a lot of kids growing up, first in books and then on movie screens and TV’s. Well seeing how it all came together by two great imaginations and the magic that followed, doesn't anything away. Written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith and directed by John Lee Hancock, “Saving Mr. Banks” gives you a look into the making of a classic. As good as a story the film has, the real stars are the performances by Hanks and Thompson. Hanks as Disney adds to a list of already great performances, but Thompson steals the show as Travers. The film doesn't move fast and takes it time to tell the whole story and not just the bullet points. This is a beautiful and moving at times. It has almost been sixty years since “Mary Poppins” came to the big screen and over ninety years since the first novel was written. This glimpse behind the curtain is worth the watch, and even with that peek, this is one story that can never lose its magic.

 Brian Taylor