Cor blimey – not Mary Poppins

It felt like Disney were almost daring me to take against Saving Mr Banks. A film celebrating the making of one of their own beloved classics, with all-round-nice-guy Tom Hanks on board to ensure Uncle Walt comes across as cuddly as possible, plus the highly imaginative casting of Emma Thompson alongside him as a brittle English lady? Self-indulgent don’t even begin to cover it.

And yet, the fulsome praise in the aftermath of the initial previews suggested that my cynicism was entirely unfounded. Had Disney pulled off the audacious trick of making a great movie out of such transparently cynical ingredients?

The story has Mary Poppins's author (PL) Travers-ing across the Atlantic to do battle with Disney and his minions over her creation’s soul. Too protective of Mary to let her go and too proud to admit she needs the Mouse’s money, she represents a spin on the stock fish-out-of-water character – someone who ought to be completely out of her depth, but who exerts her influence over everyone through sheer grumpy force of will and an acid tongue.

The exchanges between Travers and Disney (or Pam and Walt, as he insists on having it) are astutely played, the surface clash of wills and cultures shot through with subtle hints of flirtation and self-doubt on both sides. There is also plenty of fun to be had in witnessing Thompson upbraiding the creatives as they toil away fruitlessly with a script that she refuses to embrace, Bradley Whitford providing particularly good value as the put-upon writer. Over the end credits, an actual recording of one of these initial meetings is played, a lovely touch that reveals just how little artistic licence was required.

When they unveil Let’s Go Fly A Kite, it’s a joy to watch Thompson’s transformation as she begins to tap her feet, then eventually sings and dances along, Travers finally allowing herself to enjoy both herself and the process. To understand the nature of her character, however, the film decides to devote at least half its running time to flashback sequences of Travers’s childhood in Australia. These focus on the relationship with her adored father, a man who lives for the fantasies he weaves for his daughter whilst failing to cope with the outside world.

Clearly these flashbacks show how childhood events informed both the person she grew up to be and the books she went on to write. It’s unfortunate, then, that this message has to be hammered home at quite so much length and with industrial levels of schmaltz. Colin Farrell does well playing against type as the troubled dad, but the earnest sentimentality quickly becomes interminable, and with every close-up of Thompson’s face to signal an imminent cut back to Australia, my heart just sank – as did the film.

I was left to wonder what might have been. A similar character study of Travers could have been conducted through her relationship with Disney, who only exists as a shadowy presence through most of the film. This is a fascinating character who spent 20 years fighting to bring Mary Poppins to the screen, never backing down. But only at the end of Saving Mr Banks do we get a decent glimpse into that psyche.

Maybe it’s unreasonable to expect Disney the company to portray their figurehead onscreen with anything approaching a critical eye. Even so, they surely could have given Hanks more to do here. Ultimately, their biggest crime is that nowhere near enough of the genuine joy of Mary Poppins filters through. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down? That rather depends on the strength of the medicine.