Saving Mr. Banks is an American-Australian-British film directed by John Lee Hancock in 2013. This story tells the meeting between P. L. Travers (Emma Thompson), a famous British author, and Walt Disney (Tom Hanks), business magnate and well-known American producer. He has been courting Travers for twenty years, seeking to acquire the film rights to her Mary Poppins stories. But the two characters are in perpetual disagreement because the author won’t discover a stupid animated film ridiculing her heroine. Suddenly, we learn that Mary Poppins is closely linked with P. L. Travers‘ youth.
It’s very interesting for the audience to learn the story of this famous film (with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke) and the origins of Mary. We discover the figure of each famous character and we dream in the wings of Walt Disney Productions, during the flashbacks, etc. I was surprised when I saw Tom Hanks (his transformation is incredible…) . All the cast is excellent, particularly Emma Thompson who is a great actress.
The film directed by Robert Stevenson received 5 Oscars, including Best Actress.
Most of films produced by Walt Disney were inspired by existing novels or short stories belonging to Anglo-Saxon literature, like One Hundred and One Dalmatians (Dodie Smith), Peter Pan (J. M. Barrie), The Jungle Book (Rudyard Kipling) or Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll) for example.
This film seems very interesting and actors too. I think that these Oscars are merited.
I’ve seen this movie two weeks ago. It was interesting to show the vision of the author about her own story. Indeed, Mary Poppins could be her aunt who couldn’t help the father drinking alcohol, and in the book the « created Mary Poppins » can save the children and their parents. The author needs a kind of therapy about her chilhood. I didn’t like the atmosphere of Disney’s world but the Travers’ story is incredible.