SAVING MR. BANKS
Starring Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks
Directed by John Lee Hancock
Offering a largely fictionalized take on the two-week stand-off that ensued when Walt Disney (Tom Hanks, radiating benevolence) attempted to convince P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson, a walking cold front) to sign off on a big screen adaptation of her beloved Mary Poppins novel, Saving Mr. Banks gets some decent comic mileage out of sending a dour Englishwoman down the rabbit hole and into the wonderland of 1961 Los Angeles.
All pinched features and buzz-killing properness, Thompson is a repressed cut-up, gasping in abject horror at the menagerie of stuffed Disney characters that line her hotel room, shuddering apoplectically at the mere suggestion that Dick Van Dyke is one of the greats, and admonishing the songwriting Sherman brothers (Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak) for their fondness of made-up words.
However, given that the Walt Disney Studios logo precedes all of this, there's the sinking feeling that it's only a matter of time before Travers falls sway to the Magic Kingdom's spell. And while that shift is inevitable, it needn't be handled as mawkishly as it is by director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side), who serves up heaping spoonfuls of schmaltz to help the middling drama go down.
Far-too-frequent soft-lit flashbacks to Travers' Australian childhood and fawning (and unfailingly soused) father (Colin Farrell) eventually justify their inclusion (if not their execution) when they culminate in predictable tragedy. And yet, when Uncle Walt is ultimately called on to play amateur therapist, Hanks demonstrates impressive dexterity, tap dancing through a potential minefield of melodrama. Even card-carrying cynics may be hard-pressed not to buy the magic Disney is selling.
