REVIEW: SAVING MR. BANKS
Sugar and spice may run through "Saving Mr. Banks'" veins, but certainly not everyone in it is nice. Emma Thompson plays "Mary Poppins" author P.L. Travers with a Sheldon Cooper type of emotional unawareness, except she's much thornier and frostier to everyone: including the head of the Mouse himself, Walt Disney.
Disney's played by soon-to-be "Captain Phillips" Oscar nominee Tom Hanks, who, with the help of the mustache, does nail that late Disney founder's appearance, but you can't help but realize it is Hanks playing Disney instead of just ol' Uncle Walt in the flesh. Does he nail his voice/cadences? The jury's still out for me, as I always distanced myself from Walt Disney the man as a younger child; he was sort of the wizard of Oz of all my favorite childhood animated films.
The story is Disney was hounding Travers for the rights to her beloved novel, with the preface of keeping a promise to his daughters to adapt the movie. Travers very reluctantly agrees, but demands to have input, a huge chunk of it, on the final product; and she's not a fan of animated penguins. Or musicals. Or Dick Van Dyke.
Travers easily could have been played as a one-dimensional villain whose heart is eventually melted by the smothering joy factory that is Disney. But Thompson and an abundance of flashbacks, (featuring a fantastic, playful and tragic Colin Farrell as her father) help humanize this human cactus, as a lonely woman seemingly incapable of furthering herself from her past. The flashback device is overused undoubtedly, but it helps to invest in seeing how this grouch was formed.
With pillars of supporting cast members keeping "Banks" chugging, including Travers' (fictional) optimistic driver (Paul Giamatti), a sugar coated Jason Schwartzman, and his compatriots B.J. Novak and Bradley Whitford, songwriters for the movie, who she more or less bullies to secure her vision as just. "Saving Mr. Banks" is a winner, even if more than a spoonful of sugar was added to make it an appealing, ultimately feel-good biopic.
Rating: 3/4 stars
Disney's played by soon-to-be "Captain Phillips" Oscar nominee Tom Hanks, who, with the help of the mustache, does nail that late Disney founder's appearance, but you can't help but realize it is Hanks playing Disney instead of just ol' Uncle Walt in the flesh. Does he nail his voice/cadences? The jury's still out for me, as I always distanced myself from Walt Disney the man as a younger child; he was sort of the wizard of Oz of all my favorite childhood animated films.
The story is Disney was hounding Travers for the rights to her beloved novel, with the preface of keeping a promise to his daughters to adapt the movie. Travers very reluctantly agrees, but demands to have input, a huge chunk of it, on the final product; and she's not a fan of animated penguins. Or musicals. Or Dick Van Dyke.
Travers easily could have been played as a one-dimensional villain whose heart is eventually melted by the smothering joy factory that is Disney. But Thompson and an abundance of flashbacks, (featuring a fantastic, playful and tragic Colin Farrell as her father) help humanize this human cactus, as a lonely woman seemingly incapable of furthering herself from her past. The flashback device is overused undoubtedly, but it helps to invest in seeing how this grouch was formed.
With pillars of supporting cast members keeping "Banks" chugging, including Travers' (fictional) optimistic driver (Paul Giamatti), a sugar coated Jason Schwartzman, and his compatriots B.J. Novak and Bradley Whitford, songwriters for the movie, who she more or less bullies to secure her vision as just. "Saving Mr. Banks" is a winner, even if more than a spoonful of sugar was added to make it an appealing, ultimately feel-good biopic.
Rating: 3/4 stars
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