Three stars. Rating: PG-13, and needlessly, for "unsettling images"
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.20.13
Pamela Lyndon Travers published Mary Poppins in 1934, and quickly followed it with Mary Poppins Comes Back. Shortly before the series’ third book arrived, she was approached by Walt
Disney and his older brother, Roy, about bringing her character to the big
screen.
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| As screenwriter Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford) sinks ever further into his chair, P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) painstakingly nitpicks the proposed script for Mary Poppins, questioning increasingly inane details such as the placement of punctuation marks. |
She declined.
Walt, never one to surrender
easily, persisted. Indeed, he persisted for roughly two decades, at which point
a crack appeared in Travers’ armor.
Director John Lee Hancock’s
rather unusual film, Saving Mr. Banks, suggests that financial necessity
drove Travers to contemplate Disney’s offer. This seems a reasonable
assumption; Travers’ literary output inexplicably stopped in 1953, shortly
after the series’ fourth entry, Mary Poppins in the Park. (Travers also
wrote other books in between.)
Scripters Kelly Marcel and Sue
Smith had at least four biographies from which to fashion their narrative,
along with a 2002 Australian television documentary (The Shadow of Mary
Poppins) and the voluminous recordings and internal documents made during
Travers’ two-week visit to the Disney Studios, in the spring of 1961. We
therefore can assume reasonable historical accuracy, although — this being a
Disney production — the portrait can’t help being shaded in favor of Uncle
Walt.
All that said, unknowing viewers
are likely to be quite surprised by this film, and perhaps not in a good way.
Everybody will bring iconic memories of the cheery 1964 musical, with its
effervescent songs and marvelous star turns by Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke.
Hancock’s film, in great contrast, is a serious downer: frequently depressing
and, ultimately, unforgivably mean-spirited.
Emma Thompson is a precise,
highly skilled performer who never wastes a word or gesture, and her take on
Travers brings new meaning to the word “shrew.” The author depicted here is
arrogant, boorish, condescending and hyper-critical to a degree that suggests
mental illness. She demands polite behavior from others but gives none in
return. One searches in vain for kindness.
This film’s split narrative — the
other half taking place during a crucial year of Travers’ childhood, in rural
Australia in 1906 — offers ample reason for the impregnable, emotionally
withdrawn shell she’d construct, as an adult; it’s a saga of great sorrow, and
we grieve for this little girl, played to apple-cheeked perfection by young
Annie Rose Buckley.
