Emma Thompson is superb as Mary Poppins author PL Travers as she tries to resist Walt Disney's transformation of her famous creation.
Anyone who has seen and loved Mary Poppins as much as I have knows one thing for certain.
"Mary Poppins" is NOT about the kids.
For all its riotous scenes of young Jane and Michael having tea parties on the ceiling and jumping through chalk pavement pictures, it's the uptight Mr Banks who is the real target of Poppins's attentions, as she seeks to break him out of his "bank-shaped cage" and reconnect him with what really matters – his family.
No wonder the enduring Disney classic ends with Mr Banks himself leading everyone in a tear-jerking chorus of Let's Go Fly a Kite.
After all, it was his story all along.
This is the central thrust of Saving Mr Banks, a lovely, sentimental and quietly insightful account of the making of Mary Poppins that traces the roots of Helen Lyndon Goff''s most famous creation to the author's personal paternal past.
Flitting between her childhood in Australia and her later life in London, we see Helen Lyndon Goff being both enchanted and traumatised by her banker father Travers, an alcoholic dreamer with an ebulliently infantile streak whose first name she significantly adopts as a nom de plume.
Positing Rachel Griffiths's sternly haired, pointy-toed "Aunt Ellie" as a potential role model for Poppins herself, the film paints its inspirational back story with broad pop-psychology strokes, drifting between credible biography and fanciful invention with the dexterity of revellers on a Jolly 'Oliday cheerfully dancing with animated penguins.
The meat of this tale takes place in California, where Tom Hanks's tough but avuncular Walt Disney is attempting to convince Emma Thompson's brilliantly snippy "Mrs Travers".
-- "It is so discomforting to hear a perfect stranger use my first name" --
to sign over the rights to her most treasured creation.
Having promised his children that he would bring "our beloved Mary" to the screen, Walt finds himself being snubbed, scolded and generally sniped at by the author who repeatedly says that "Mary Poppins – never just 'Mary' – is not for sale!".
Yet for all her objections to his "silly cartoons", Travers needs Walt's "cold heartless money" (as Bert would say), and thus the two are locked together amid the fairy castles of Disneyland to resolve their differences, with the help of the Sherman brothers, whose gorgeous songs get an equally tough time from the tight-lipped tyrant.
Cue a succession of hilariously exasperating "creative" meetings in which Travers airily dismisses some of the most sublimely inspired sequences of musical-fantasy cinema with the air of a stern school ma'am striking a red pen through the homework of an irksome pupil.
A real-life audio recording of one of those meetings played during the end credits reveals that Thompson isn't over-egging the snippiness in the slightest.
Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) and PL Travers (Emma Thompson) in Saving Mr Banks. Photograph: Fran Ois Duhamel
That Travers never actually reconciled herself with the Disneyfication of Poppins (she vetoed any further films) doesn't matter.
Saving Mr Banks wants us to take the truth with a spoonful of sugar, and The Blind Side director John Lee Hancock juggles the affectionate and the abrasive with ease, creating a scrumptious confection with a soft heart, a tart edge and just the right amount of reality.
This being a Disney production, one might assume that history had been duly whitewashed, but the original screenplay (which was on the 2011 "black list" of hottest scripts) was written without House of Mouse involvement, and once on board their only major stipulation was to insist that Walt did not smoke on screen.
He does however drink and drive a hard bargain, with Hanks confidently portraying the steely resolve behind the twinkling smile and welcoming arms, reminding us that Disney's passion for a Poppins movie was underwritten by the power to make it happen, to get his own way in the end, whether Travers liked it or not.
As for Thompson, who did such a great Scary Mary turn in the Nanny McPhee films, she is sheer perfection in the complex role of "Mrs PL", never allowing the author to descend into crotchety caricature, constantly suggesting a strain of melancholia behind the biting, control-freaky hautiness.
As always, her comic timing is impeccable (she plays the script like Paganini played the violin), but what makes her performance soar is the precisely choreographed physicality.
The tiniest stretch of the lip, an arch angling of the head, the folding of her arms – somewhere between aggressive and defensive.
For all the terse quips and personal reserve, Thompson dances her way through Travers's conflicting emotions, giving us a fully rounded portrait of a person who is hard to like but impossible not to love (although the Shermans may have begged to differ).
Travers actively disliked Disney's movie, but no matter.
Ultimately, they didn't make it for her.
On the other hand, as a diehard Thompsonite who considers Mary Poppins one of the 10 best movies ever made, they appear to have made Saving Mr Banks for me.
And I loved it.
Can Tom Hanks rescue Walt Disney from Saving Mr Banks?
The actor delivers another charmer, but this story about Mary Poppins is more atrocious than supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
What Saving Mr Banks tells us about the original Mary Poppins
The Guardian Film Show: Saving Mr Banks, Carrie and Jeune et Jolie – video review
Saving Mr Banks – review
Saving Mr Banks star Emma Thompson: 'PL Travers would have rather looked down upon film' - video
Saving Mr Banks: trashing Mrs Travers?
Saving Mr Banks - watch Tom Hanks in the trailer for a film about the making of Mary Poppins
Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson at Saving Mr Banks premiere - video
Saving Mr Banks: London film festival – first look review
Oscar predictions 2014: Saving Mr Banks
Saving Mr Banks trailer hits web – with Tom Hanks starring as Walt Disney
Share
inShare
Best and worst in cinema
The Innocents – review
Mark Kermode
Nebraska – review
Peter Bradshaw
Carrie – review
Peter Bradshaw
Powder Room – review
Mike McCahill
What's this?
More from the Guardian
I enjoy the freedom of being single – but should I be looking for a partner?
22 Dec 2013
Brandy: 'I've already gone through my bad girl phase'
19 Dec 2013
Abbas Khan's death in Syria: why his family don't believe the official story
20 Dec 2013
Real-life inspiration for Cinema Paradiso's Alfredo dies
23 Dec 2013
I enjoy the freedom of being single – but should I be looking for a partner?
22 Dec 2013
Brandy: 'I've already gone through my bad girl phase'
19 Dec 2013
Abbas Khan's death in Syria: why his family don't believe the official story
20 Dec 2013
Real-life inspiration for Cinema Paradiso's Alfredo dies
23 Dec 2013
[?]
What's this?
More from around the web
Harry Potter Revisited: We Bet You Won't Recognize A Few Of These Kids
(Refinery29)
Brad Pitt Looks Better at 50 Than Any Other Man Who Has Ever Lived
(People)
Floyd Mayweather sends out Christmas card making fun of Manny Pacquiao (Photo)
(FanSided)
15 Worst Transitions From Child Star To Adult Celebrity
(Styleblazer)
Harry Potter Revisited: We Bet You Won't Recognize A Few Of These Kids
(Refinery29)
Brad Pitt Looks Better at 50 Than Any Other Man Who Has Ever Lived
(People)
Floyd Mayweather sends out Christmas card making fun of Manny Pacquiao (Photo)
(FanSided)
15 Worst Transitions From Child Star To Adult Celebrity
(Styleblazer)
[?]
AdChoices
Ads by Google
Capital One Business Bank
Unlimited Checking with Business in Mind. Open Today!
capitalone.com/SparkBusiness
Master's in History
Online, Accredited, Top Ranked. Apply Now! Next Classes Start Soon.
history.norwich.edu
The Samsung Chromebook
100GB free Google Drive storage. For everyone. Starting at $249.
google.com/chromebook
Comments
We can't load the discussion
on theguardian.com because you
don't have JavaScript
enabled.
On Film
Most viewed
Latest
Last 24 hours
1. 2014 in film preview: drama
2. 2014 in film preview: comedy
3. Emma Stone tops Forbes list of 'best value' Hollywood stars
4. Why we need to re-evaluate the films we once called great
5. Martin Scorsese heckled at Academy screening of The Wolf of Wall Street
More most viewed
Last 24 hours
1. 2014 in film preview: drama
2. Italian posters for 12 Years a Slave herald Brad Pitt over Chiwetel Ejiofor
3. All is Lost director JC Chandor: 'The film should feel like one long ribbon' - video interview
4. Emma Stone tops Forbes list of 'best value' Hollywood stars
5. 2014 in film preview: comedy
All today's stories
On the Guardian today
Music
Justin Bieber announces his retirement on Twitter
Comment is free
The Brits have it right: forget Happy Holidays, just wish people Merry Christmas
Television & radio
Doctor Who recap: The Time of the Doctor
World news
Ancient burial box claimed to have earliest reference to Jesus
World news
Half a million face Christmas without power in north-east US and Canada
World news
Antarctic expedition scientists trapped in ice
Today's best video
Christmas German market at London's Southbank
Shoppers browse the Southbank Centre Christmas Market in London as the festive day approaches
Weirdest sports highlights of 2013
From mascot racing to gravy wrestling, wife carrying and more
Seattle gunman wrestled to ground by bus passengers
CCTV footage of man disarmed by passengers on a bus in Seattle
Inside the mind of Lee Rigby's killer
Forensic psychiatrists and Adebolajo's brother discuss death of soldier Lee Rigby
Sponsored feature
Latest reviews
American Hustle – review
David O Russell's anarchic comedy based on a 70s real-life scam expertly recreates the excesses of the era, writes Mark Kermode
The best films of 2013: Mark Kermode's choice
Moshi Monsters: The Movie – review
Walking With Dinosaurs: the 3D Movie – review
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues – review
More film reviews
Today in pictures
BBC Sports Personality of the Year – in pictures
Bradley Wiggins capped his remarkable sporting year by taking home the big prize at the ceremony in London
Dinner, dusk and dancing Russians: my best winter shot
A glass of wine with a rough sleeper, Santa in trunks, a thousand partying Muscovites … in a My Best Shot special, top photographers pick the image that sums up winter for them
Monkey adopts kitten – in pictures
Kimon, an eight-year-old pet female long-tailed monkey, treats a kitten as her baby in Bintan Island, Indonesia
More from Mark Kermode's film of the week
Films of the week reviewed by the Observer's film critic Mark Kermode
Latest:
22 Dec 2013: American Hustle – review
Next:
8 Dec 2013: Nebraska – review
Previous:
24 Nov 2013: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – review | Mark Kermode
Mark Kermode's film of the week index
Related information
Film
Drama
·
Emma Thompson
·
Tom Hanks
·
Culture
Saving Mr Banks – review
28 Nov 2013
There's a sorry lack of spark between Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks, but then this is a Disney film about Mary Poppins, says Peter Bradshaw
27 Nov 2013
Saving Mr Banks star Emma Thompson: 'PL Travers would have rather looked down upon film' - video
26 Nov 2013
Saving Mr Banks: trashing Mrs Travers?
12 Nov 2013
Saving Mr Banks - watch Tom Hanks in the trailer for a film about the making of Mary Poppins
Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson at Saving Mr Banks premiere - video
21 Oct 2013
Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson brave the wet weather on Sunday for the London premiere of their new film Saving Mr Banks
No comments:
Post a Comment