“Winds in the east, mist coming in. Like something is brewing, about to begin.” – Bert
Hey kids!
What
makes us who we are? Is it the world we inhabit, or the people who surround us, who love us
that shape who we become as we grow older. It’s the old argument of Nature vs.
Nurture. I tend to agree with the Nurture side of the equation. There are very
few things in my life which I cannot in some way, shape, or form correlate to
something from my past; whether it be as simple as having sword fights with my
Dad or the fact that I spent most of my early teenage years with my nose in a
book. These are the things that shape us into who we are, and who we become. But
we are not defined by those early influences.
That’s
my long, drawn out introduction for my review of “SAVING MR. BANKS”; which in
the most basic of terms chronicles the hard-nosed effort of Walt Disney to
secure the rights to the character of Mary Poppins from the author P.L.
Travers, specifically two weeks where she ventured from London to Los Angeles to give her insight into what she believed
the film should be, a film that in her eyes
would not include a single song and most certainly none of Disney’s
“silly cartoons”. That is the surface story, the one used to sell the idea to
audiences and most likely the financiers of the film itself. But, the
deeper story, the one harder to sell in a trailer, is the one most fascinating
and is the reason that this struck as deep a chord with me as it did. Perhaps
it was because I hold Disney history in such high regard, perhaps it was
because I saw the film on New Years Eve, or it even might be because I’m just a
soft hearted bastard that romanticizes everything, but for whatever reason you
prefer “SAVING MR. BANKS” is my favorite movie of the year.
I’ve
known about this project for years now; from the very day that it was announced
that Tom Hanks was to play Walt Disney. I was over the moon excited. Walt Disney
and everything he encompasses and represents holds a very dear place in my
heart. The worlds of fantasy created within his lifetime are so integral to my
childhood that it’s almost impossible to separate my own experiences without some
facet of that brilliant imagination coming into play. I’ve read every book I
could on the man, multiple biographies, which when I say it out loud sounds
border line ridiculous. But the life of this farm boy from Missouri captured my
imagination in ways I can’t even still quite comprehend. I grew up within his
worlds of wonderment; Walt Disney World was in many ways my home. It was the
place that I came to live, to be free and happy before being shuffled back to
reality, where expectations and bullies awaited. And it all stemmed from this one man, a man
who died almost 30 years before I was even born, a man I would never meet but
am incredibly indebted to. So the idea of seeing Walt Disney portrayed on
screen for the first time, by Tom Hanks no less, was enough to send this Disney
Geek’s heart soaring. But, while this was my initial reason for falling in love
with the concept of the film, the actual story is far more fascinating indeed.
You see the story is not about Walt, not directly anyway. Instead it’s about a
little girl and her love for her father.
While
the film highlights the creative process that went into the creation of a
modern film masterpiece, “MARY POPPINS”, it is the story of Mrs. P.L. Travers
which makes the story of the story all the more compelling. Mrs. Travers was
not born such, her real name was Helen Goff, the daughter of a banker in turn
of the century Australia. Her father, Travers Goff, was an incredibly loving
man, prone to wild bouts of imagination with which he would transport his
daughter to a world of princesses and dragons. The film shows the tender
interactions between Travers and Helen, their fantasies roaming freely as they
become whoever or whatever they wish to be, far away from the choke hold world
of money and jobs within they both lived. You see, Travers Goff was fired from
bank after bank because he was a drunk. He would take off entire days from work
just to play with his daughters, only for his wife to find a half empty bottle
of booze in his jacket pocket. So Helen would watch while her father’s whimsy
became his downfall, and her family was decimated because of his inability to
accept the role that reality had dealt him. He is Mr. Banks. He is the man Mary
Poppins comes to save.
While
every performance in this film is pitch perfect, he unsung hero of this film is
the transcendent performance that Colin Farrell gives as Travers Goff. He is the epitome of what every child wishes
their father to be, tender and understand, whimsical and able to spring into a
world of fantasy at the drop of a hat. Farrell brings to this performance a
tenderness that immediately made me think of every time my Father played make
pretend with me, when we were pirates in the Spanish Maine or I was Batman
fighting the Joker. The love in the eyes of Travers Goff is the love I’d seen a
thousand times throughout my childhood, the love that I’m sure most everybody
could associate with their own memories in some form or another. We all have
that one person who inspired us in some way to dream as children that helped us
battle off the banality of reality away for just a little while. Colin Farrell
truly should be the awards favorite from this film, and that’s saying something
let me tell you. But unfortunately he is overshadowed by the two heavy hitter
characters of Disney and Travers, leaving his performance somewhat in the dust.
But to be honest, coming from the biggest Disney Geek on Earth and while I
loved Tom Hanks as Walt, it’s Travers Goff who had me weeping throughout the
film.
This is a film about fathers,
simple as that, and the reverberations that the actions of our fathers have on
us throughout our lives. Mrs. Travers watched her father’s imagination tear her
family apart, so she substituted that whimsy with the prickliest of demeanors.
Emma Thompson performs at the top of her game as the tight lipped British
writer, battling her own demons throughout the flick. To see her statuesque
façade melt throughout the course of the film was a wonder to behold. But the
most fascinating idea of the film is how the actions of our parents have a
direct correlation to who we become. Mrs. Travers’ father was a man of wild
bouts of imagination and whimsy, but that life drove her family to ruin. This
traumatizing childhood unfortunately had vast reverberations throughout the
rest of Mrs. Travers life. She grew to be cold and calculating, removing
herself from anything and everything whimsical or childlike. It’s for this
reason that she turns her nose up at Walt’s vast empire of imagination; she has
grown icy to such things.
And even Walt Disney himself, a beacon of
fantasy and imagination who’s influence is still felt to this day, almost 50
years after his death, has a story that sheds light onto the man he would
ultimately become, a story wrought from his earliest days of childhood when his Father would force Walt
to deliver 500 newspapers twice daily; through rain, sleet, or snow. Walt is a
man born from the hard backed, ruggedness of Americana, a byproduct of his
father’s own American dream. And in turn, Walt faced that reality and countered
it with fantasy, with the transference of real world themes told through
fantastical worlds of animation and wonderment he was able to transcend harsh
realities and instead bring light to the darkness.
I know,
you could say I’m rambling but honestly my feelings on this film could be
enough to fill an entire essay or book for that matter. The poetic correlation
between Father and Child in this film hit me in a very deep, personal place.
There wasn’t a point in the film where I wasn’t either smiling or crying, but
more often than not I was doing both at the same time. Anyone who ever grew up
watching “MARY POPPINS” or grew up singing “Let’s Go Fly A Kite” will leave the
theater with an incredibly bright warmth in your chest; a feeling of pleasant nostalgia
for that small bit of us that still believes there is magic in the world. There
were a million things in this film for me to geek out over, (I basically yipped with delight when I saw plans for Disney World sitting in Walt’s office. Judge me if you will.) but that’s not the reason this film
is my favorite of the year, if not one of my favorite films of all time. It was
an incredibly personal, spiritual experience that hit both the inner child and
the “adult” I am now. I really don’t know what more to say, my mind on the
matter is still a jumble of emotions and opinions. Part of me wants to write
more about the film itself but at this point it doesn’t really matter. This
movie hit me in a way I’ve never felt before and while this year has been a
roller coaster of mega ups and abysmal downs, the clock ticked off on 2013 with
me feeling incredibly supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. What more could I
ever ask for in a silly little movie?
My Recommendation: SEE IT!
Until next time, thanks for reading!
Jeremy
