Saving Mr. Banks

Saving Mr. Banks (2013) starring Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks. Walt Disney (Hanks) attempts to convince P.L. Travers (Thompson) to sell him the rights to her book "Mary Poppins" so he can make it into a movie. She resists fiercely, because she is afraid he'll try to make it into a cartoon, which she detests. Travers, however, needs the money and her resistance slowly crumbles. This is a fun movie which suffers slightly from the continuous flipping back and forth between flashbacks to Travers' childhood in 1901 Australia and the time of the negotiations, 1961. Hanks makes a pretty good Walt Disney, but you never forget that he is Tom Hanks, not Walt Disney. Thompson steals the show as Travers -- she is very convincing in the role, and expresses a wide range of emotions very well. (The disc provides English subtitles for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: B+