Saving Mr. Banks
Dir. John Lee Hancock
Starring Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Bradley Whitford, B.J. Novak, Jason Schwartzman, Annie Rose Buckley, Rachel Griffiths, Ruth Wilson
125 minutes
I am a sucker for a movie about movies. Hugo, Adaptation, Purple Rose of Cairo, Super 8, Seven Psychopaths, Ed Wood, Singin’ in the Rain, Sunset Blvd. all rank somewhere among my favourite films ever (it’s a long and indiscriminate list that changes weekly).
Saving Mr. Banks, about the adaptation of P.L. Travers’s Mary Poppins into the 1964 Disney musical starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, isn’t quite as great as the films mentioned above, but it’s touching, informative and sweet. Sometimes too sweet.
Saving Mr. Banks is a Disney movie about a Disney movie. If you’re looking for a movie that’ll rip Walt Disney apart or paint him in a negative light, Saving Mr. Banks does none of that. Disney is a creative genius and one of the most popular men in the world who also happens to be the nicest boss ever in Saving Mr. Banks. All he wants is to fulfill the promise he made to his daughters 20 years ago that he would make their beloved Mary Poppins book into a movie.
Chris Hanna 