Why Saving Mr. Banks Might Actually Be Saving Mr. Disney

He's won more Oscars than any other human, but in spite of being the most formidable figure in the history of Hollywood, Walt Disney has never been in a movie. 

The reason for that is pretty simple. From the moment that Walt died in 1966, the company he founded started manipulating his image into one of a benevolent, unimpeachable deity. In the fifty years since then, they've guarded it closely. Perhaps too closely. And Disney the Man has kind of disappeared behind Disney the Brand. Which is a real shame, because Disney the Man is one of the most fascinating and brilliant humans of the 20th century. 

So when the Disney company announced that they were making Saving Mr. Banks and that Tom Hanks would be portraying Walt, I was excited but also extremely apprehensive. With the Disney name attached to it, would the film be just another entry into the company-approved mythology of Walt?

P.L. Travers is not very optimistic.

Imagine my surprise when the first thing you see or hear of Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks is a loud and horrible smoker's cough. It's the kind of thing that never would have been approved by the Disney company that I grew up with. 

Then again, neither would most of Saving Mr. Banks. 

What appears to be a family-friendly comedy about the making of the Mary Poppins film is actually a deeper and darker examination of childhood traumas and how they can inform the rest of a person's life. And, eventually, how those traumas can be transformed into the highest caliber of art: the honest kind. From the get-go (and from that smoker's cough) this is a film that defied almost every expectation that I had for it and made me love it even more.

Jason Schwartzman and Ryan the Temp compose a musical interlude to British frumpiness. 

Saving Mr. Banks is split between two places and time periods. The first is Los Angeles in 1961, when author P.L. Travers (the sublime Emma Thompson) visits the Disney studios to collaborate on a script to a Mary Poppins movie that she hadn't yet relinquished the rights to make. The second is turn of the century Australia, where young Helen Goff grows up adoring her alcoholic father (played with such a delicate, endearing sadness by the always underrated Colin Farrell) and distanced from her suicidal mother. The scenes in California are mostly humorous, with the obstinate and opinionated Travers wreaking havoc on Disney's creative team. She insists that the color red be left out of the film, that Mr. Banks shave his mustache, that Dick Van Dyke has to go, and that, under no circumstances, should there be any of Walt Disney's "silly cartoons" in the picture.

Colin Farrell's sad, puppy-dog eyes are the break out stars of this movie. 

As the film goes on and spends more time on Travers' unhappy childhood, it becomes painfully clear that she has her reasons for clinging so desperately to the characters that she created. Emma Thompson has never been better than she is in this film (admittedly, she is almost always good). In the hands of a less capable actress, the adult Travers would have come across as a cold, unfeeling British caricature. Thompson plays her as a woman with a tempest of emotions raging underneath her exterior, beaten down by the necessity of neglect. If anyone at the movies this year is begging for catharsis, it's this P.L. Travers person. 

Of course, that doesn't happen without the perquisite spoonful of sugar. In this case, that is a trip to Disneyland (filmed at the actual Disneyland! Dressed up in 60's accoutrements!) with its very namesake.

The carousel horse that Emma Thompson is sitting on in this scene really is named "Jingles". She was rededicated in 2008 to honor Julie Andrews. Though not visible in this picture, her saddle is adorned with the letters "JA" and a picture of Mary Poppins with her famous umbrella. 

Walt himself is only a secondary player in this film, but what little we see of him both surprised and impressed me. This is the first glimpse we've been allowed of Walt the Man. He tosses back Scotch! Gets angry! Curses! Smokes a cigarette! Tom Hanks embodies him with the same tinkle-eyed and playful spirit that we've come to expect from Walt Disney, but there's something else here, too. There's the unmistakable scent of desperation. In real life, this man was used to getting what he wanted and there was nothing he wanted more than Mary Poppins, especially after being told no for twenty years. He cajoled and manipulated his way into getting this movie made, and it goes without saying that it was the greatest film he ever did. Ultimately, Walt was so passionate about it (they even played "Feed the Birds" at his funeral), that it's not hard to believe, as the film supposes, it must have  been somehow connected to his strained relationship with his own father.

I've read quite a few criticisms of this film for its historical inaccuracies. And for its portrayal of Travers and the many aspects of her life that went without mention (her estranged adopted son, her fascination with mysticism, her unconventional romantic relationships with both men and women) and it all seems so unnecessary to me. Saving Mr. Banks simply wasn't meant to be about any of that. It is a sweet and emotionally resonant film about the powerful nature of storytelling and the ways that the stories we tell can change the world- for other people and, most importantly, for ourselves.

Wait! I forgot to tell you how adorable Paul Giamatti is in this movie!