SAVING MR BANKS Starring: Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson, Colin Farrell Director: John Lee Hancock Category: IIA Rating: 3/5 Light dramas have fallen out of fashion in Hollywood in recent years, but here's one from Walt Disney Pictures that makes for a pleasant couple of hours' viewing. Saving Mr Banks doesn't dig deep into its characters - Walt Disney and P.L. Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books - despite its pretence to the contrary, and its attempts to offer up psychological insights are clumsy. But the performances of Emma Thompson (as Travers) and Tom Hanks (as Disney) are capable in the extreme, sometimes exuding the engaging charm of a latter-day Hepburn and Tracy. Their solid, old-school acting often allows them to fight through the movie's layers of fluff to give it a bit of gravitas. The story is based on fact. Disney (who likes to be called Walt) has been trying hard to buy the rights to Mary Poppins for 20 years, but London-based Travers (who prefers to be called Mrs Travers rather than Pamela or, worse, Pam), fearing a slick and superficial Hollywood treatment of her work, has always resisted. Still, she's starting to run out of cash, so agrees to visit his Los Angeles studios and partake in something that never, ever happens in Tinseltown - work on a script for her book before he has obtained the rights. Disney thinks that if he can impress Travers with his sensitivity and professionalism, she'll sign over the book to him during the process. But he hasn't counted on her snooty, Iron Lady manner and pure disdain for anything American - especially his "cartoons", which she finds childish. Saving Mr Banks has the solid, well-built feel of a traditional Hollywood production. Scriptwriters Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith have done a top job in making sure our emotions are tugged in the right places; in the places they are left alone, there is a lot of genial banter about snooty Brits (they don't know she's really Australian by birth) and crass Americans, to provide some humour. In case anyone complained about a lack of mawkishness, Paul Giamatti is on hand as a friendly limo driver who has a daughter in a wheelchair. Around a third of the film takes place during Travers' childhood in rural Australia, where she learns about the hardships of life via her alcoholic, but loving, father (Colin Farrell). Director John Lee Hancock goes to great lengths to show how Travers' childhood influenced the Poppins story, and even introduces an aunt who's a ringer for the nanny. While this theory of Poppins' genesis could be true - that Travers is trying to redeem her father with the story - the references to the past are handled in a very unsubtle manner. One neat touch is that Travers, although she finally bends, does not break. What happens in the latter part of Saving Mr Banks mirrors real life: Travers reportedy couldn't stand Disney's 1964 production, and was enraged by the cartoon penguins. 48hours@scmp.com Saving Mr Banks opens on January 30
