Saving Mr Banks (Emma Thompson)

(Amazon UK link)

It’s nine-and-a-half years since we watched the film ‘Saving Mr Banks’. I remembered liking it very much, and recalled the basic outline, but had forgotten all the details. We knew it was based on a true story, of course, and decided to watch it again last night.

Emma Thompson is perfect as the rigidly uptight writer PL Travers, in the early 1960s. Indeed, it took me a while to realise who the actor was. Mrs Travers (who allows very few people to use her first name) is a very proper Englishwoman in her sixties. She was briefly famous for having written the classic novel ‘Mary Poppins’, but doesn’t want to write any more, and - as her agent points out - she’s facing poverty, unless she is willing to discuss turning the book into a film. 

Mrs Travers hates the thought of her creation being animated, or turned into a musical, and has resisted offers from Walt Disney Productions for twenty years. But, unwilling to lose her house, she agrees at last to fly to Los Angeles to meet the team who would like to adapt her book. However she insists that she will write the script, and she will have the last say on every detail. 

There’s some mild humour as she comes up against airline staff and passengers, and some wonderful asides with Ralph, the personal chauffeur allocated to her for her time in California. But there’s also a great deal of poignancy; much of the film is shown in flashback form, when the young Helen went through some very traumatic scenes in her childhood. 

I hadn’t looked at the DVD cover, so had forgotten that Tom Hanks plays Walt Disney himself in this film. He’s so good that I hadn’t realised who he was until the credits roll at the end. Walt Disney is portrayed as a likeable man, who really wants to make this film after promising his young daughters that he would, two decades before. 

The film of ‘Mary Poppins’ is so well-known that it’s not a spoiler to say that eventually Mrs Travers agrees to the making of the film, although she’s unimpressed with several of the songs, and horrified at the thought of some animated sequences. And part of the storyline involves her getting to know the team, and gradually - reluctantly - accepting them. 

But the more powerful part of the story takes place fifty years earlier, when the young Helen, oldest of three girls, sees her beloved father lose his job, and descend into alcoholism. She’s a thoughtful child who adores her father, and is devastated when one of his promises cannot be kept. And as Mrs Travers sees flashbacks of her past, Walt Disney finally begins to understand what the book is really about… 

I don't suppose it's entirely true to the real story. But at the end, over the titles, we hear some of the recordings made during the actual meetings in Los Angeles. It's good that they were kept, and suggests that, at least to a reasonable degree, the story is accurately told. 

I was mesmerised by the film, even if I ended up (like the first time) with the song ‘Let’s Go Fly a Kite’ as an earworm. It’s beautifully made, realistically done, with just the right blend of gentle humour and poignancy. I would recommend it to everyone who has ever seen the film of ‘Mary Poppins’ (or read the book); indeed, having now watched this again, I want to see ‘Mary Poppins’ again, as I didn’t recall at all the few sequences shown from it in ‘Saving Mr Banks’. 

Very highly recommended. The rating is PG, possibly because there are some rather tense and gory scenes from the childhood flashbacks. But a young child probably wouldn’t really understand this anyway; I probably wouldn’t want to show it to a child younger than about eleven or twelve. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews