The author of Mary Poppins, PL Travers is facing financial problems and must consider allowing Walt Disney to adapt her book into a film while struggling to maintain the vision she had for it in the first place. John Lee Hancock directs the screenplay written by Sue Smith and Kelly Marcel. Emma Thompson stars as the Mary Poppins author and Tom Hanks stars as Walt Disney.
This family friendly tale is one with two very nice performances by the lead actors. Emma Thompson is very good as the author who is disconnected from the rest of the world and is an unhappy person. Unfortunately some of her performance seems like a rehash of her work in Stranger Than Fiction, where she also played a stubborn author. Tom Hanks as Walt Disney is great but it doesn't improve the film greatly. He feels like Disney and you get to see the man that built an empire. The film does not center around him as interesting as that may have been. Most of it is Colin Farrell who plays the father of PL Travers in flashbacks. Colin Farrell plays a good father who tries to show his daughter that the world can be full of magic while struggling with his own personal demons. Paul Giamatti plays the only american that PL has ever liked, a driver who takes PL back and forth between her meetings with Walt Disney. Giamatti is not in the film much but does make the most of his screen time.
John Lee Hancock is a good director and he does a good job balancing the duel story lines and handling the performances. It was an interesting film with cool insight about the making of Mary Poppins. The screenplay does get sappy at times. Every character in it seems to have a tragic back story. Regardless it is a good story about accepting the past and not allowing it to dictate the future.
3.8/5
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