Movie · 2013 · Comedy, Drama, History · 2h 6m · PG-13 · English
Curator score: 5.3/10 (314.2K ratings)
Where her book ended, their story began.
Overview
Author P.L. Travers looks back on her childhood while reluctantly meeting with Walt Disney, who seeks to adapt her Mary Poppins books for the big screen.
Ratings
Curator score: 5.3/10
IMDb: 7.5/10
Letterboxd: 3.53/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 79%
Metacritic: 65
TMDB: 7.3/10
Director
John Lee Hancock
Production
Hopscotch Features, Walt Disney Pictures, Ruby Films, Essential Media and Entertainment, BBC Film
Cast
Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Ruth Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Bradley Whitford, Annie Rose Buckley, B.J. Novak, Kathy Baker, Lily Bigham, Melanie Paxson, Andy McPhee, Rachel Griffiths, Ronan Vibert, Fuschia Sumner, David Ross Paterson, Laura Waddell, Barbara Keegan, Steven Cabral
Where to watch
Disney Plus
Curator Review
Verdict
A polished, emotionally accessible studio drama with strong lead performances and a nostalgic pull, but it also smooths over real tensions and can feel overly self-congratulatory about Disney’s own mythmaking. Worth it if you like prestige biographical dramas with warmth and sentiment; less so if you want sharper historical honesty or a less corporate point of view.
Best for
Viewers who enjoy performance-driven biographical dramas
Fans of nostalgic, emotionally sincere period pieces
Audiences interested in the making of classic family films
People who like stories about creative conflict and reconciliation
Skip if
You want rigorous historical accuracy
You dislike sentimental studio-brand storytelling
You prefer messy, unsentimental character studies
You’re turned off by films that feel like corporate self-portraiture
Overview
Saving Mr. Banks is a handsomely made, very watchable piece of prestige storytelling. John Lee Hancock keeps the film moving with clean period detail and a soft, crowd-pleasing rhythm, while Emma Thompson gives the movie its bite and its ache. She makes P.L. Travers prickly, wounded, funny, and stubborn enough to resist becoming a simple obstacle in someone else’s inspirational tale.
Worth noting
The film’s biggest strength is that it understands creative compromise as emotional drama. The flashbacks to Travers’ childhood give the story a genuine melancholy, and Colin Farrell adds warmth and sadness in a role that could have been merely symbolic. Tom Hanks is charming as Walt Disney, though the movie is most interesting when it lets the power imbalance between artist and institution remain visible.
Bottom line
Still, the movie is also very much a Disney movie about Disney, and that limits how sharp it can be. It wants to honor pain without fully interrogating the machinery that packages it. If you accept that tradeoff, it’s an effective, polished tearjerker with standout performances and a strong sense of period craft.
Top Letterboxd reviews
maria (4.5★) · 1753 likes
disney'll make a movie about making this movie in 60 years
Alice Stoehr (0.5★) · 717 likes
Patronizing, terrifying, sexist, saccharine, tedious... evil, really! This is a movie about a woman being manipulated and beaten down over two lethargically paced hours by a rich, whimsical man and his corporate machine until finally, finally he unlocks her psyche and she gives in. Every character in this is one-dimensional, granted a single trait or explanatory secret. Every conversation is premised on the laziest kind of historical irony and the assumption that Mary Poppins in its finished form is the greatest thing mankind has ever wrought. Fuck this movie. This is roughly how I expect Oceania's Ministry of Truth would adapt 1984.
elliebean (4★) · 579 likes
okay mouse you win this round
Sam (3.5★) · 419 likes
Well-shot, handsomely produced, and engaging. where the lack of historical accuracy feels appropriate for another entry into the ‘Mary Poppins canon’ (if you will). Feels self-aware in comparison to other contemporary Disney live-action products. Hanks could’ve gone further into the Walt-persona, but Emma Thompson puts in the emotional work and gives an enjoyable and genuinely compelling performance. And it’s all heightened by that saccharine, whimsical score; I just fell for it and got swept up in its blast of nostalgia.
ty (5★) · 263 likes
This hits me harder than a truck load of bricks would. I’m really in my feelings tonight fam
A story about authorship, exploitation, and the struggle to control one’s own creative identity.
Topics
biographical drama, period piece, studio politics, sentimental, emotional, creative process, family trauma, nostalgic, Hollywood history, prestige drama