A Lark A Spree It's Very Clear To See

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Saving Mr. Banks is one of those movies where you spend the entire movie waiting for the two main characters to just sit down and have the conversation that you know the movie is saving for its resolution. It doesn't make any sense, the way the film writes the history of it, that Walt Disney wouldn't engage with author PL Travers right off the bat about what Mary Poppins really means to her - that he would affront her on her creation time and again without knowing what the character means to her and why she's being so defensive. I assume there's plenty of truth to these two's difficult relationship and the way they butted heads and egos over the changing of the story, but the movie doesn't structure it in a believable way. He's been working her for twenty years and he never went to England once? Again this might very well be fact, but the film never sorts that out.

And yet, here's the thing - I kind of loved Saving Mr. Banks, you guys. Oh I see the film's faults, as the previous paragraph is desperate to makes clear, so I also kind of feel ashamed that I liked it so much. There's this scene towards the end where Emma Thompson is sitting and watching the Mary Poppins final product at the premiere and that was ME, watching this movie. She cringes, she's mortified, and then she sings along and she cries and she cries so much. I fought and I fought but Saving Mr. Banks broke me down.

It doesn't hurt that Emma Thompson is her usual glorious self - I think we take it for granted since she makes it seem so easy, what she's managing here, but it's pretty astonishing. PL "Pam" Travers is a harsh woman, unkind to children and platters of Jello molds and adorable singing Jason Schwartzmans alike, and I never, not for a second, found her anything less than charming all the same. You're just right there with this mean ol' lady with such ease and comfort, and even with the flashbacks methodically filling in the blanks (speaking of I thought Colin Farrell was absolutely terrific as her father, too) Emma's face and voice convey so much constantly conflicting information, it's never less than totally captivating watching her go.

And even though Mary Poppins itself isn't that great of a movie and a lot of Travers' worries were justified, well I always find myself tapping my toes to it anyway, and there's a similar friction in watching the creative process behind the scenes of it so lovingly rendered. It's a movie about creative people arguing about compromise and ownership and perspective in art, and it's a conversation the movie actually finds interesting, and I do too. Faults be damned, I'm gonna go fly a fucking kite and there's nothing you can do to stop me, dammit!

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