Saving Mr. Banks has a fundamental structural flaw that keeps it
from being more than half of a good movie.
The film tells the story of one
P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson, and you owe it to yourself to queue up Wit right away), author of the ‘Mary
Poppins’ book series. Walt Disney (Tom
Hanks) flies her to California to convince her to sell him the film rights, but
she’s having none of it.
This is a recipe for a good
movie. Thompson and Hanks (and Paul
Giamatti, in a small supporting role) rank among the best actors of their
generation; I love Mary Poppins and
I’m interested in the “making of;” and "unstoppable force meets immovable
object” is a great recipe for drama.
There’s a problem, however. The film tells a parallel story, that of young
Ginty (Miss Travers), her father (Colin Farrell, and you really, really should
see the Fright Night remake), and
their family’s attempt to make it in the banking business somewhere in the
Australian outback. Not only did not I not
particularly care about Ginty and her dad, but I felt the time spent showing us
Ms. Travers’s deep backstory killed the momentum of the Thompson/Hanks
conflict. What the film could have told
us through a few lines of dialogue, a photo on a mantelpiece, and Thompson’s
extraordinary talent, it instead delivers through a plodding, predictable,
depressing series of flashbacks.
An hour-long Saving Mr. Banks, with most of the Ginty material excised, would
make for a film I’d happily recommend.
As it stands, however, I suggest you see this one with your thumb on the fast forward button.
