Saving Mr. Banks Review

Movie Review: Saving Mr. Banks

For many Disney fans, they remember the childhood memory of growing up and watching the popular Disney film, “Mary Poppins”, which starred Julie Andrews. Now, the story behind Mary Poppins is being told through Disney, in the film, “Saving Mr. Banks” but what makes this film even more unique is actor Tom Hanks, portraying the man behind the Disney magic, Walt Disney.

The story focuses on Disney working on negotiations for a film portrayal of Mary Poppins after promising his children that he would. This task is not as simple as it seems when the author of Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers, played by Emma Thompson, is very protective of her work and having rules regarding the production of the film, which includes it not being a musical, not starring Dick Van Dyke, no use of the color red; no made-up words and no animation. We later see the inspiration behind how Mary Poppins came to be, particularly the character of Mr. Banks as we see flashbacks of Travers’s childhood (where she went by her real name Helen Lyndon Goff and her close relationship with her father. Travers’s childhood was not as practically perfect like her character of Poppins, as her father, played by Colin Farrell was ill and drinking excessively to relieve the pain while her mother suffered some sort of depression, leading her to try and commit suicide.

Seeing Travers’s childhood is interesting because it is a complete difference to who her character is as an adult. While Disney still seems to have his inner child, Travers seems to have lost hers. She is more pessimistic and serious as an adult whereas as a child, she was innocent, carefree and a very imaginative dreamer, until tragedy happens when she loses her father. We still see glimpses of her inner child desperately trying to come out as she works on the film production of Mary Poppins, eventually agreeing to musical songs. However, when Disney tries to add in animated penguins, Travers claims the contract has been breached, causing the film adaptation of Mary Poppins to be temporarily put on hold.

Disney eventually heads to London to discuss the matter with Travers, revealing that he understands that Travers is so protective of her story because the character of Mr.Banks is based on her father. Disney promises that everything will be ok with the film and asks Travers to trust him. This scene is a pivotal moment in the film because Travers learns that despite his childlike faith, Disney’s childhood was not perfect either, as he was abused and that there wasn’t a day that went by where he didn’t think about it.

The score for this film is very moving and complements the scenes very well. The costumes are very decade-appropriate and the plot and character development is well-done, especially with the friendship that develops between Travers and her chauffer. The film brings emotion to many scenes, especially during the last scene between Travers and her father, along with the scene where Travers gets emotional while at the premiere of the film.

There is an exceptional cast along with Thompson, Farrell and Hanks, which includes Kathy Baker, Melanie Paxson, Ruth Wilson; Bradley Whitford, Jason Schwartzman and Ronan Vibert. The only issue is the film is a little inaccurate as it depicts that Travers appreciates the changes made to the film, when in reality, she did not approve of the changes and refused to do any more movie adaptations of the Mary Poppins series ever again. To conclude though, Disney brought this film to life with its emotional story of Travers’s life and work with Disney for Mary Poppins, one of the most beloved literary characters of all time.

August: Osage County Review

Movie Review- August: Osage County

“August: Osage County”, based on the play by Tracy Letts, focuses on a very sarcastic and drug-addicted woman named Violet Weston, played by Meryl Streep, who is suffering from mouth cancer. When her family comes to their home, secrets emerge and tragedy strikes. While this film has its humorous moments, due to Violet’s sharp-tongued wit, the film also has its dramatic moments, showing that this film has much darker tones than the humorous looking trailers depicted.

While the family begins to reunite, Violet’s alcoholic husband, Beverly Weston suddenly disappears. He is later found dead, having committed suicide via drowning. During all of this, Violet criticizes her family for various things, including sniping at her daughter, Ivy Weston for her choice in dress and lack of romantic life and ridiculing her 14-year-old vegetarian granddaughter, Jean for her extreme beliefs regarding eating meat. After Beverly’s funeral, more family drama ensues regarding the revelation of incest, secret affairs and an attempt at child molestation within the family. In the end, the broken family leaves Violet alone with her Native American caretaker, after Violet drives her family away, revealing her husband’s death could have been prevented due to her knowledge of where he was the night before his passing but blaming her daughter, Barbara Fordham, played by Julia Roberts, for Beverly’s suicide, causing Barbara to be the last family member to leave her mother, after realizing her mother cannot be helped.

The film consists of a great cast which includes not only Roberts and Streep but also Ewan McGregor, Abigail Breslin, Chris Cooper; Dermot Mulroney, Sam Shepard and Benedict Cumberbatch. The character development and plot is deep and filled with many dramatic plot twists that help the audience relate and connect to the characters on a more emotional level, especially Violet and Beverly, who the audience can sympathize with to an extent. To conclude, the film comes off as a comedy towards the beginning but eventually escalates into a drama that anyone who has ever dealt with a broken family or any major family problems can relate to.

Gravity Movie Review

Movie Review: Gravity

“Gravity” was highly praised as a cinematic magnificence, receiving many Oscars this year but the film was a bit of a letdown that just dragged on. Its plot was too predictable, the script fell flat with its cheesy, overdramatic and even at times, vague dialogue and the character development was a bit lifeless and unrealistic at times. While its visual effects were its best feature, the creators of “Gravity” knew that wouldn’t suffice in drawing big ratings, having to rely on big Hollywood star names like Sandra Bullock and George Clooney to bring in ticket sales.

The film focuses on a female astronaut named Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, on her first mission in outer space. She, along with her team, which includes astronaut Matt Kowalski, played by George Clooney soon encounter chaos when debris hits their space shuttle, killing mostly everyone which if you ask me happened too soon into the film. They could have built that climatic moment up more, even by adding some background into the characters preparing for the mission, choosing to show that this is Stone’s first mission, rather than just have her mention it right away .

After the tragedy, Stone and Kowalski are the two remaining characters but even with the focus being on the two of them, the character development and script still fall short. Both before and after Kowalski sacrifices his life, Stone panics about everything, to the point where it is too over the top. Granted, it is her first mission in space but when your partner is telling you to stay calm in order to survive, you better be listening to them and shutting up but Stone does not, continuing to panic and give up on everything, to the point where her character becomes so annoying that you just want to slap her and tell her to shut up, even though it’s doubtful she would even listen and cooperate then either.

As for further character development, there isn’t much in the film. The only thing we learn about Stone is that she was a mother but her child died after taking a bad fall at her school. Of course, all of this is told to us through a poorly written script and we never see any flashbacks of Stone with her daughter, making Stone’s character seem even less realistic and believable when she is talking about how much she misses and loves her daughter. Perhaps, there could have been a stronger connection between Stone’s character and the audience if they had developed the character more through scenes showing memories of her with her daughter, instead of only scenes of Stone panicking and floating around in outer space the whole time. Eventually, Stone makes it back to Earth, which is no shocker since they made it overly predictable through the script that she was going to make it back the entire time.

To conclude, “Gravity” may have received major points for its visual effects but the film was highly overrated and never kept my interest from the very beginning.