Awards season always tends to bring out some of the best films of the year making it much harder for audiences to decide which ones to see and when. For those more enthusiastic about seeing their favorites of this year winning much-deserved awards, it is all the more frustrating, yet exciting. It is, however, a shame that the Academy didn’t deem ‘Saving Mr. Banks’ worthy of a Best Picture nomination.
After seeking P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), the author of ‘Mary Poppins’, for 20 years to sign over the rights to make the film, Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) finally convinces Travers to fly to Los Angeles to give him the rights to the story. Before she can do that, however, she has several objections to what Disney and his art department (Bradley Whitford, B.J. Novak, Jason Schwartzman) want to do with the film. It’s through her disapproval that we find out the real story behind the flying, umbrella-carrying nanny.
Among the many strengths of ‘Saving Mr. Banks’ is its cast. Each actor brings his or her own flare to their characters and, in doing so, makes the film all the more enjoyable. Like a very protective mother (and understandably so), Travers—brilliantly played by Thompson—shoots down everything she deems unsuitable, anything that doesn’t relate to themes of darker realism that she wants to relay to children, and/or anything that damages any of the characters, whom she calls family. It’s safe to say that she rules out almost everything—from the scene titles in the screenplay to the dancing animated penguins in the park—and Thompson portrays her with a sharpness (and vulnerability) that is practically perfect in every way.
Although screenwriters Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith avoid any inkling of the darker side of Disney, they do write him as a man who’s used to getting everything he wants. Nevertheless, it’s with being in her presence that audiences get to see him progress over time into a two-dimensional character with Travers’ story being the main focus of the film.
‘Saving Mr. Banks’ is one of the better structured and aesthetically pleasing scripts to come out in 2013. As if taking its cue from Ms. Poppins herself, there is neither a single word out of place in the dialogue nor a moment that seems to just fly in out of nowhere. The script moves between Travers’ background and the making of the Mary Poppins film; these two stories gradually mirror each other as we dive deeper into the motivations behind Travers’ decisions by exploring her childhood. Marcel and Smith steadily reveal through her past that nothing is as it seems which is so very well guarded by Travers. In the story of her past, her father (Colin Farrell) lies at the center of both her joy and her pain. Farrell handles the character with the upmost care coming off as a very charming father to his impressionable daughter (a young Travers played by Anne Rose Buckley) and a stubborn, depressed man to an overwhelmed wife, Margaret (Ruth Wilson).
Finally, ‘Saving Mr. Banks’ ends in the same way it begins with a voiceover from Farrell quoting the Mary Poppins film followed by a special treat from the real author herself in the credits.
Although both stories are predictable for the most part, ‘Saving Mr. Banks’ is both beautifully shot as well as masterfully written with lots of neat touches and little tributes to the Disney film, plenty of wonderful scenes (i.e., Travers’ quarrels with the staff, the art department going through the songwriting process and singing along, etc.) and very moving scenes that mostly center around what stories mean to many people and the value of imagination. ‘Saving Mr. Banks’ is worthy of every accolade that it’s not getting at the Oscars. If ’12 Years a Slave’ is the Best Picture that everyone needs to experience at least once, then ‘Saving Mr. Banks’ is the Best Picture that everyone should experience again and again.
Jim’s Rating: 9.25/10