(USA/UK, 125 min.)
Dir. John Lee Hancock, Writ. Kelly Marcel, Sue Smith
Starring: Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Colin Farrell, Annie
Rose Buckley, Ruth Wilson, Paul Giamatti.
Fidelity might be the most well-trodden angle to approaching
adaptation, but it’s the most consistently intriguing way to look at the
journeys books take as they become films. Fidelity can be one of the most
salacious approaches, too, thanks to the risqué connotation of the word. Writers
can feel like cuckolds when moviemakers change their precious works, but such protests
might be in vain. An author might not have any right to be unhappy when a
screenwriter plays fast and loose with a book because, as André Bazin once
said, “he sold it, and thus is guilty of an act of prostitution that deprives
him of many of his privileges as the creator of the work.”
P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) feels branded with the scarlet
letter when she explores the offer to sell the rights to her beloved novel Mary Poppins. Mrs. Travers—never “Pamela,”
“P.L.” or, heaven forbid, “Pam”—is marked with the Disney D in the utterly
sexless adaptation pic Saving Mr. Banks,
which dramatizes the rocky road of Mary
Poppins’ evolution from cherished book to classic Disney film. Mrs. Travers
is at the end of her financial rope when Saving
Mr. Banks first whisks the audience to her nice English flat. She’s tapped
out both creatively and financially, so her only choice is to meet with Walt
Disney (Tom Hanks) and negotiate the screen rights in a deal she’s been
refusing for twenty years.
Mrs. Travers might feel like a harlot because she’s cashing
in on the story that seems to be the core of her identity. As the crotchety
sourpuss tangoes with the Disney clan, namely, Mary Poppins’ screenwriter
Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford), the song writing team of the Sherman Brothers
(Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak) and, especially, Walt himself, she holds on
to the minutest details of the book as if any liberty taken with Mary Poppins and the Banks family is akin
to blasphemy. “No, no, no,” prattles the stern battle-axe as she fights to keep
every word of Mary Poppins true to
the Travers’ version and not the Disney dumbing-down.
Saving Mr. Banks
intercuts the story of Mary Poppins’
pre-production with flashback sequences that reveal the story behind the frumpy
English authoress and, in turn, her nanny with the fancy umbrella. It turns out
that Mrs. Travers, née Helen Goff, had a difficult upbringing in the Australian
outback. Her dad, played by surprising Colin Farrell, was a boozy banker and
her mum, played by Ruth Wilson (The Lone
Ranger), bore too much of a burden to be much of a parent. Things in Mary Poppins that seem inconsequential to
the Disney team thus have significant personal value to Travers, as the
sporadic flashback episodes reveal why Mrs. Travers might cling to her text so
dearly.
Movies about movies are often easy escapism for film buffs
and Saving Mr. Banks is no exception.
Mary Poppins is essentially a story
of redemption through make believe, so Saving
Mr. Banks screenwriters Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith have a lot of fun honouring
the magic of movies by taking Travers on a transformative arc are she learns to
suspend her disbelief and loosen her stiff upper lip. Saving Mr. Banks is a special treat for movie lovers fascinated by
the art of adaptation. The battle between Travers and Disney is very much akin
to that between the sods in the English department and the fun-loving kids in
the Film House, as Travers’ reluctance to permit an adaptation of Mary Poppins lies in her snooty belief
that film is fundamentally inferior to the literary arts. She thinks cartoons
are silly and songs are dumb. A film is inherently void of substance, she
insists, as she throws sheets of the Shermans’ now iconic music out the window
to demonstrate its perceived lack of substance as the pages flutter to the
ground. “No weight,” Thompson quips in her ferociously deadpan take on the
stodgy Travers.
The fight between Travers and Disney is that at the core of
fidelity criticism: is a film categorically inferior to book just because it
deviates from its source? The question is still a relevant one as, say, critics
quibble about the “Barbara ending” in August:
Osage County while the film plays just fine if one hasn’t seen the stage
drama. Travers assumes that the writer’s interpretation of Mary Poppins is the authoritative reading of the text, yet everyone
else’s love for the book—Disney’s included—could stem from his or her own
interpretation. Walt nevertheless sees her reluctance to give up Mary Poppins,
since his own creation of Mickey Mouse taught him the kinship one feels with
one’s characters and of the price one might pay for selling them.
Saving Mr. Banks
couldn’t find a more affable pair of co-stars to embody the yin and yang that
forms the core of the film’s debate. Emma Thompson shines in her turn as the
delightfully frumpy author with daddy issues. She drops zingers with dryness
and cordial timing to match Maggie Smith on Downton
Abbey, but she also invests a childish heart and sense of wonder into Mrs.
Travers as she breaks down the cranky author’s frigidness in the final act. A
notable subplot featuring Paul Giamatti’s likable chauffer draws out Travers’
humanity, while Travers becomes an
emotional wreck watching Mary Poppins
at the premiere as she is overtaken by the Disney magic.
The image of Disney magic is served well in Tom Hanks’s
squeaky-clean take on old Walt himself. Hanks is at his jolliest playing the
Disney tycoon. He’s cartoonishly animated in this larger-than-life portrayal of
Mr. Disney, batting his eyelashes and thrusting his arms with the pantomimes of
vintage Mickey Mouse. The role, however, doesn’t afford the same kind of depth
that Thompson brings to Travers. Saving
Mr. Banks, a Disney film, understandably portrays its creator as a kind of
mythic hero. The Walt Disney of Saving
Mr. Banks gives audiences a spoonful of sugar to match the medicine of P.L.
Travers. (In the most delightful way.)
Everything about the film is safe and family-friendly. Saving Mr. Banks is less a probing of
the Disney mystique and more an addition to the magic of an already-magical
film. Travers’ modelling of Mr. Banks on her father and Disney’s modelling of
Mr. Banks on himself, for example, re-affirms the Disney charm of translating Travers’
work into a big screen adventure. The inconsistent flashback sequences grant
the 1965 Julie Andrews/Dick Van Dyke film a layer one hadn’t seen before as Saving Mr. Banks reveals aspects of
Travers’ life that worked their way into the film. She just needed Disney to
articulate them with dancing penguins so she could cherish the father she
eulogized in her book.
Likewise, Saving Mr.
Banks does a spot-on job in paralleling both storylines with the original Mary Poppins film, so that one is
consistently entranced by nostalgia each time a cue triggers one’s love for the
original film. “How much does the girl playing young Helen look like the child
of Mary Poppins!” one will marvel as Saving Mr. Banks offers a snippet of
footage from the film before cutting to a captivating Emma Thompson as Travers
stars at the moviescreen like Amélie and blubbers for her lost childhood. Ditto the
grim appearance of Six Feet Under’s
Rachel Griffiths as the no-nonsense nanny with the fancy umbrella who chirps
“snip-snap” when she wants something done. There’s an extraordinary attention
to detail in Saving Mr. Banks in
honouring the original Disney film and Travers’ story in one charming tale.
One could easily look at Saving
Mr. Banks, take its innocuous charm and its high-key lighting, and write it
off as Disney propaganda. To do so might not be entirely unfair, as Saving Mr. Banks admittedly simplifies
much of the rumours and rockiness of the Mary
Poppins affair in an audience-friendly ‘Yay Disney!’ crowd-pleaser. Saving Mr. Banks, timed just before the
fiftieth anniversary of the beloved Disney film, seems just as destined to
endure cynicism as it does blissful nostalgia.
On the other hand, a Disney film about a Disney film allows Saving Mr. Banks to include much of the
actual production of Mary Poppins
into the drama itself. This film isn’t Hitchcock,
which could barely show a snippet of Psycho
lore lest it be slapped with a lawsuit. There’s no copyright holder more
powerful than Mickey Mouse, so Saving Mr.
Banks needs to be a true Disney film for it to take viewers into The
Happiest Place on EarthTM and show them enough of Mary Poppins to experience the film once
again.
Saving Mr. Banks
makes a decent effort, too, to allude to the stickier points of P.L. Travers
and Walt Disney that might not sit comfortably with the company’s G-rated
image. Travers’ alleged bisexuality, for example, surprisingly makes its way
into the film when Walt’s remark that Travers is “no ordinary woman” is
followed by a few subtle glances Thompson makes as Travers checks out the
behind of a woman in the hallway or scopes out the females in the bar as she
sips a lonely pot of tea. The same goes for Mr. Disney. He was rumoured to
smoke like a chimney, yet Saving Mr.
Banks shows him take not a single puff. The film does, however, give Walt
one heck of a phlegmy smoker’s cough and a token line about how he never lets
people see him smoke in order to uphold the company image. It’s as on-the-nose
as the flashbacks are, but this is, after all, a film by the director of The Blind Side.
Director John Lee Hancock perhaps pulls off the most
unexpected feat by showing that a film like Saving
Mr. Banks can be completely Disneyfied without much disservice. It’s a very
well done piece of classical Hollywood escapism, perfectly tailored and
crafted—the score by Thomas Newman and the costumes by Daniel Orlandi are
highlights—so that viewers can slip seamlessly into the world of one of the
greatest stories ever put onto film. P.L. Travers scoffed at Dinsey's vision, but Saving Mr. Banks shows that there's nothing wrong with family-friendly escapism—so long as one remembers who is making it and why.
It might be safe and sugary, but one could again look to last year’s Hitchcock and recall the sense of violation that arose when the film looked less at the brilliance of Psycho and more at the Great Director’s sexual deviance whilst paralleling him with the man who inspired Norman Bates. Hitchcock felt less faithful to Hitchcock than the sweet-toothed Saving Mr. Banks does to Mr. Disney. P.L. Travers might be the victor here, for Emma Thompson’s resplendent performance ensures that her story has been adapted in the most delightful way.
It might be safe and sugary, but one could again look to last year’s Hitchcock and recall the sense of violation that arose when the film looked less at the brilliance of Psycho and more at the Great Director’s sexual deviance whilst paralleling him with the man who inspired Norman Bates. Hitchcock felt less faithful to Hitchcock than the sweet-toothed Saving Mr. Banks does to Mr. Disney. P.L. Travers might be the victor here, for Emma Thompson’s resplendent performance ensures that her story has been adapted in the most delightful way.
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Saving Mr. Banks is now playing in limited release.
It opens in Ottawa
Friday, December 20th.