A mutual understanding, that's antagonistic is a lack of mutual understanding that's beneficial.A lack of mutual understanding is a gain of unequal understanding. An unequal understanding is an unequal recognition. A gain of unequal recognition is a gain of hierarchical recognition - a gain of hierarchical recognition is a gain of greater recognition.A gain of greater recognition isn't greater recognition. A gain of greater recognition is lesser recognition. Lesser recognition isn't recognition. Lesser recognition is the lack of recognition.The lack of recognition is the gain of no recognition. The gain of no recognition is the gain of no empathy.The gain of no empathy is the loss of empathy.The loss of empathy is the gain of cruelty.The gain of cruelty is beneficial.Benefit is gain. The gain of cruelty is an inability to be cruel. Benefit is the inability to be cruel.Benefit is the ability to be kind.Being preoccupied with the potential for kindness, as opposed to just dealing in kindness itself is what dooms Saving Mr Banks. Saving Mr Banks is a flawed product, as its essence is to misidentify the importance of the potential for kindness

Well,Mrs Travers certainly did that,basing her best known book "Mary Poppins" on her own somewhat fraught childhood. Having achieved that catharsis she had no wish to see her characters "Disneyfied" by a man whose only achievement as far as she could reckon was to have drawn a cartoon mouse and gotten very rich on it. Thus the contest began between this strong determinedly unimpressed Englishwoman and one of Hollywood's richest movie moguls for the "soul" if you like,of the world's favourite nanny. Well,we know of course that Mr Disney won her over eventually and ended up making possibly his best - ever film,and probably his most - loved. The "Mr Banks" in the title refers not only to Mr D.Tomlinson's character but that of her father,a gently alcoholic businessman in Australia on whom it was based. Miss E.Thompson is blindingly good as Miss Travers,charming yet steely right up to the end. Mr T.Hanks plays his usual good - humoured and slightly exasperated character,a turn he has made his own over the last 30 years. It's a sad and funny quite uplifting film - rather like "Mary Poppins" itself. Even if you haven't been to the pictures since 1964 when you sat down to watch Julie and Dick armed with a "Kia - Ora" and some popcorn I urge you to give it a go.

...or "uncovering Mary Poppins" would perhaps be a more appropriate title for this great film. If nothing else, this would certainly be much better than the stupid and totally irrelevant one the film had in my country ( "The magic umbrella") associating in a most naive and superficial way this touching psychological drama with W. Disney's "Mary Poppins". Perhaps that's why i did not care to watch it till yesterday, thinking that i have had enough of magic umbrellas in my childhood. I never thought that the film had nothing to do with "Mary Poppins" as a fairy tale and her magic umbrella itself, but it was instead focusing on uncovering the real drama that inspired the good witch's story. In this movie we actually watch two,at first glance irrelevant to each other, stories. One that took place in the beginning of last century in Australia and one that takes place in the beginning of the -60's when Mrs Travers, the author of "Mary Poppins" tries to come in terms with W. Disney about how the book would be transformed into a movie. Though it's difficult to understand at the very beginning why she is so unbearably stubborn and insisting on how the characters of the book would be shown and illustrated in the film and overall about the film itself, soon, as her own life's story unfolds making clear what her fairy-tale's characters really represent, her attitude and her almost repulsive behavior become more understandable and she herself more likable and compassionable. After all for many of us our childhood's demons are still a part of our life, consciously or subconsciously controlling and influencing our personalities and we all have a Mr Banks or an Elias Disney (Walt's "demon") to save/make up with, don't we? The film is really good and exciting to watch. Perhaps the excellent revival of the sixties and its characters contribute a lot to this. And of course the revival of these characters through the great performances of -my beloved- Emma Tomson in a "contra role"-that is to say a role we are not used to seeing her in- as a typical aging English shrew, as well as that of Tom Hanks (great as Walt Disney) and the rest of the cast, make this revival absolutely convincing. In Brief, "saving Mr. Banks" is a really good, truthfully tender and touching film which does deserve your attention!

An unhappy woman becomes a smashing success thanks to the publication of what is now a children's classic. Like many artists, she seemed to abhor fame and when Hollywood beckoned, she declined. Well, at least with the creator of the allegedly happiest place on earth. The woman was the Austrian born P.L. Travers, her boss to be Walt Disney, and her leading character a nanny almost as prickly as her who was known as Mary Poppins.It should be noted that the first production of Mary Poppins anywhere was a television version starring character actress Mary Wickes back in 1949. Ironically, right before the movie first went into production, Wickes posed for artist drawings for Cruella Deville in "101 Dalmatians". That was an the animated film, and P.L. Travers wanted no part of animation for her story. She showed up in Los Angeles in 1961 already copping an attitude, and her first meeting with Disney, songwriters the Sherman Brothers and the screenwriters and director did not go off well in the least. But as the Disney magic begin to roll in, this Travers focus on her life as a little girl, her family problems and incidents which she would later utilized in creating her classic stories. Some of the flashbacks slow the film down completely, but her character would not really be understandable had they been omitted.Honestly, I liked the character of P.L. Travers, here played by the glorious Emma Thompson portrayed with a prickly look like "Wicked Witch of the West" Margaret Hamilton. She is certainly not fond of little children, being rather aggravated by the presence of tons of teddy bears and other stuffed animals in her hotel room. She's rather curt with children when she meets them and even at Disneyland won't sign autographs. But in spite of all of that, there is something underneath the surface that shows the sad little girl, and because of that I was able to like her in spite of her being a tremendous grouch. When she during her first hearing of "Let's Go Fly a Kite", it is a magical moment just like the many that Disney provided over its glory years. I must admit, however, that Tom Hanks simply seems to be playing Tom Hanks, vaguely made up to resemble Walt Disney but really not coming like him from my memory of original building of the wonderful world of Disney back during the Glory Days of my own childhood. That is a minor complaint, because I have seen many other portrayals of real-life figures that were even further away than from what Hanks does with Walt. When Emma Thompson is on screen, the film truly shines and its success is due in the most part to her very detailed performance which is like nothing she had played every before. The conclusion of her story is sad, and her involvement with the much later stage version rather prickly as well, but what results is a fascinating story of great Hollywood history that minus the flaws was quite an achievement. In a sense, I liked it more than then the film which I think today is highly overrated, and certainly much more than the overblown version that came to Broadway in the middle of the first decade of the millennium.