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Created Dec 31, 2013 12:04AM PST • Edited Jan 01, 2014 11:26AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Mary Poppins has a fascinating and affecting backstory. Who knew. Yet it’s not a surprise when you think about it. Then, how much have we thought about Mary Poppins? Deeply that is. We’ve watched it, each of us, first as kids, loving it like no other movie. It’s the perfect kid’s movie after all. Then again as parents, watching it time and again with our own kids. Loving it again: the songs, the laughs, the adventures, the bottomless bag, the drama. Real drama involving real kids, which then as now is really remarkable.

   It turns out we never really thought about it however, especially about the traumatic Banks’ family drama.

   That drama was reconstituted by author P.L. Travers from the unfortunate circumstances of her own life as the little daughter of an alcoholic bank manager in early 1900s Australia. Badly scarred by that childhood, Helen Goff wrote under the pen-name P.L. Travers and fashioned herself Mrs. Travers, not just Mrs. and certainly not Pam. Was she ever married? No. Was she obsessed with her fatally romantic Dad? Yes.

   Those deep psychological issues made her disagreeable to everyone she came in contact with, especially Walt Disney, who wooed her for two decades to allow him to make her Mary Poppins into a movie. She only consented to travel from London to Hollywood after book sales fell off, and with them her royalties.

   Saving Mr. Banks is about that trip and the premiere of the greatest kid’s movie ever – Mary Poppins.

   Emma Thompson delivers a scintillating perfomances as P.L. Travers. Masterful and monumental it is.

   Tom Hanks’ Walt Disney – another capstone to his iconic career – says “Call me Walt.” We can call Tom Hanks the Jimmy Stewart of a new generation, as deeply trusted as a moviestar can be.

   A strong supporting cast behind the two big stars, a deeply grown-up story about the creation of the ultimate kid’s movie, a critical insight into Mary Poppins as shocking as it is obvious, a nostalgic touchstone for Baby Boomers through Millennials, Saving Mr. Banks proves that Disney can produce grown-up movies nearly as great as their perfect kid ones. That’s some kind of magic.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks top the stellar cast in what is an ensemble performance. Her P.L. Travers and his Uncle Walt are iconic performances of depth, nuance and charisma, major moviestars both. Some other members of the ensemble get up to a dozen scenes each.

   • Annie Rose Buckley as the little girl who would become P.L. Travers. Fetching performance for this sweet newcomer.
   • Colin Farrell as her fatally alcoholic father – Travers Goff. Hmm, where’d she get the idea to call herself Mrs. Travers? Daddy issues are rarely this legitimate.
   • Ruth Wilson as Mrs. Goff, Ginty’s Mom and Travers’ wife, poor woman. Ruth Wilson proved herself a distinctive actress earlier this year in The Lone Ranger. Her severely disappointed woman here is a masterclass in the art of the Internal Performance. The look that she gives her drunken husband when he humiliates himself in front of the entire town is molten in intensity.
   • Paul Giamatti as the engaging driver of the Lincoln Limo that Disney provides for P.L. Travers.
   • Bradley Whitford as Don DaGradi, the acclaimed writer of Disney’s Mary Poppins
   • B.J. Novak & Jason Schwartzman as the supercalifragilistic Sherman Brothers, Robert & Richard. They wrote A Spoonful of Sugar, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and Chim, Chim, Cher-ee!!!
   • Lily Bigham as Walt Disney’s office girl
   • Kathy Baker as his executive assistant, Tommie. Gotta love that she had a man’s name. Also gotta love that a credit this far down features the great Kathy Baker.

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Really Great 4.5

8. Male Costars Really Great 4.5

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    John Lee Hancock’s film from Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith’s incisive script is perhaps the most grown-up Disney-labeled movie ever and the only one to profile the real Walt Disney himself.

    Just because it’s from the Mouse House doesn’t mean it doesn’t pack a punch to the emotional solar plexus. Real-life family drama is rarely portrayed so bracingly. Saving Mr. Banks thus fulfills the deepest wishes of the now deceased P.L. Travers. She resisted Walt Disney’s spoonfuls of sugar for twenty years and two intense weeks in Hollywood, all because she wanted children to know about life’s tears as well as its joys.

    Indeed, regular flashbacks to her traumatic childhood leaven the film, giving it real emotional heft.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Really Great 4.5

13. Music Perfect 5.0

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.4

    Lack of edge doesn’t mean lack of emotional punch. The Sex meter at a virginal 1.0 means it’s Disney.

17. Sex Innocent 1.0

18. Violence Fierce 1.6

19. Rudeness Salty 1.7

21. Reality

    Glib 1.1

    The Walt Disney Company allowed a mildly “warts and all” treatment of Saint Walt, but Saving Mr. Banks’ circoreality can be reasonably estimated at 140% of actual. It’s less that we must assume that any seriously untoward behavior was bowdlerized, it’s that the story has received some serious dramatic treatment to make it more cinematic. Dramatic treatment requires dramatic license, which leads to a circoreality slider set at 1.4x Normal.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.4

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0