Film Review: Saving Mr. Banks

Saving Mr. Banks. Rated PG (mild themes). 125 minutes. Directed by John Lee Hancock. Written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith.

Verdict: This big-hearted, engrossing tear-jerker kicks off 2014 in magical style.

If this splendid film about P. L. Travers (Emma Thompson) negotiating with Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) over the rights to film her beloved Mary Poppins is anything to go by, then 2014 is going to be a great year at the cinema. What, at first, appears to be a film that is going to quaintly recall the relatively unknown story about the creation of one of Disney’s masterpieces, soon reveals itself to be a brilliantly written and acted story that will capture, and then melt, your heart.

Thompson is spell-binding as the perfectionist Travers, who travels from her home in London to the Walt Disney studios in Los Angeles to oversee the big screen adaptation of her beloved novel. Running in tandem with the showdown between the incredibly proper Mrs Travers and the determined Disney, is the story of the author as a young girl – Ginty (Annie Rose Buckley) – growing up in Australia, full of admiration for her alcoholic father Travers Goff (Colin Farrell).

Hancock (The Blind Side) directs what might have been an unwieldy affair masterfully, with the transitions between Australia in 1906 and LA in 1961 beautifully handled. John Schwartzman’s (The Amazing Spider-Man, Seabiscuit, Pearl Harbor, Armageddon) cinematography is gorgeous, as is Michael Corneblith and Daniel Orlandi’s (who collaborated on The Blind Side and Frost/Nixon) perfect production and costume design respectively.

Veteran composer Thomas Newman’s (American Beauty, Skyfall, Finding Nemo) score powers the story-telling beautifully, while still allowing the Sherman brothers’ (B. J. Novak plays Robert and Jason Schwartzman plays Richard) unforgettable songs from Mary Poppins (Let’s Go Fly a Kite is an absolute high-point) to star, as rightfully they must.

Hancock’s faith in his stellar cast is rewarded by superb performances from everyone, and from about the halfway mark until its heartfelt conclusion, be sure to have tissues handy. Quite a few.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.