The Unsentimentality of Sentimentality - Or Is It The Other Way Around?

Emma Thompson as P.L. Travers in Saving Mr. Banks (John Lee Hancock, 2013)

I never expected Saving Mr. Banks to hit me as hard as it did. I went in with equal measures of expected disappointment - believing I was to watch a sugarcoated-Disney-themed film - as well as thrilled excitement to watch Emma Thompson (who is always great).

What I knew of Mary Poppins was Disney and Julie Andrews' blunt and cheerful version, but I didn't, in fact, know anything about the origins of Mary Poppins or her inventor, P. L. Travers prior to the film - and to say Saving Mr. Banks came as a surprise is an understatement. 

I'm not the biggest fan of sentimental films and I am very rarely a movie crier, but in this case I was deeply touched. I cannot decide whether it was because it was sentimental - or rather unsentimental in its sentimentality; a sort of raw sentimentality which is greatly due to the performances of its ensemble cast, especially Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Ruth Wilson and Rachel Griffiths. 

Perhaps because Travers is portrayed as a complex woman so full of surprises (with, of course, much more to her) despite her incredibly hard shell of aggressive, highly self-protective defensiveness and killjoy-philosophy. And because Walt Disney - for all his equally self-protective, persistent, all over cheerfulness and optimism - hides an insightful personality as well as a very harsh childhood story. Or as Travers so aptly explains to Disney in the film: