Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) woos a reluctant P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) in Saving Mr. Banks



Saving Mr. Banks, a fictionalized account of two weeks Travers spent on the lot in Burbank, is proof that Walt has thawed and secretly reclaimed Disney's reins. Not only is he awarding his feat a second round of applause, to play himself he's cast no less than Tom Hanks, America's dad, a man who still looks huggable doused in Somalian pirate blood. Hanks' Walt has a soft belly, a hard head and the twang of a boy raised on a Missouri farm. Instead of out-arguing Travers' qualms, he simply smothers them in sugar. Watching the two go head-to-head is like watching a melted marshmallow drape itself over a spike. (Though if you look closely, Hanks' eyes flicker with a steely glint.)

Against a charmer like that, Emma Thompson's tweedy Travers doesn't stand a chance, not that director John Lee Hancock gives her one. Audiences who love Walt Disney's Mary Poppins are forced to dislike its author, who loathes everything about it: the musical ditties, Dick Van Dyke, even Mr. Banks' mustache. That's not all she hates. Travers despises children, California, stuffed animals, Jell-O and fun. Cookies are vulgar. Disneyland, she sniffs, is sickening.

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As a feint toward empathy, Saving Mr. Banks splices in Travers' hardscrabble childhood in Australia. Her father (a charismatic Colin Farrell) was a yarn-spinning drunk, her mum (Ruth Wilson) a wispy depressive. In them, we see traces of what will become both her inspiration and irritants: disorder, whimsy and an instant suspicion of imps like Walt.


Walt was popsicled two years later. Travers lasted another three decades. But while Saving Mr. Banks feels like his risen-from-the-grave attempt to pretend that Travers only cried during the film because it reminded her of her daddy, the disgruntled writer got her own eternal revenge on Walt, Burbank and the sunny country that's made Mickey Mouse its international ambassador: Not only did she forbid the studio from making a sequel, in her will, she decreed that no American would ever be allowed to tamper with her Mary Poppins again.

SAVING MR. BANKS | Directed by John Lee Hancock | Written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith | Walt Disney Studios | Citywide



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