#10 SAVING MR. BANKS

#10 SAVING MR. BANKSStarring Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Colin Farrell, Jason Schwartzman, Paul Giamatti, Bradley Whitford and Ruth Wilson, to name but some of the cast. Directed by John Lee Hancock

126 minutes.

This is the opening salvo by the Disney corporation to have it's founder, the loveable, charming, sweet old uncle Walt Disney canonised and made into a saint.

Telling the story of how the loveable, charming, sweet old uncle Walt Disney, played by Tom Hanks charmed the cold-as-ice, spinster, PL Travis, Emma Thompson into signing off on the movie Mary Poppins, despite the the later's open loathing of the former's crassness and cartoons. Told showing Travis's youth and the origins of the Mary Poppins story, this is a beautiful looking and moving, if not fictionalised account of the meeting of these two great minds.

Colin Farrell, one of my least favourite actors, gives a compelling and tempered performance as the young Travis's troubled father the Banks of the title and the rest of the cast are thoroughly convinicing.

It's a shame this film doesn't show up some of Walt Disney's more un-savoury aspects choosing instead to present him as almost a living saint, similarly PL's melting feels a little forced at times. Still, this is still a thoroughly enjoyable peek behind the curtain of the creative process, although I could have done without so much of her childhood.

7/10