SAVING MR. BANKS - 1 nomination

SAVING MR. BANKS

Music (Original Score) - Thomas Newman

Saving Mr. Banks is the story of how Walt Disney convinced the misanthropic and Britishly uptight author of Mary Poppins (PL Travers) to allow Disney Studios to turn her beloved book into a movie.  The film flashes back regularly to her childhood in Australia with a loving but alcoholic father and a troubled mother.  The film is at once sad, funny, and touching, and it was somehow irresistible to watch this favorite childhood movie come to life.  In addition, Emma Thompson is devilishly difficult, and manages to be distasteful as a character in her great lack of common social skills and also sympathetic as her childhood story comes to life.

As a great fan of Mary Poppins (the Disney movie), the way that the music is woven into the film is brilliant.  It's more than hearing the songs again as though they are being written in front of us, though that is fun to watch.  What makes the music remarkable is that the original music from that movie is integrated into the orchestrations for this film.  It makes the entire score lovely and visceral - and you can't help feeling something that touches your soul.  This is one of the few original score nominations this year that I wholeheartedly endorse.

I saw Saving Mr. Banks twice, and I deeply enjoyed it both times.  It's a movie that works on every level, the performances are authentic and the story gives us satisfying insights into how the character of Mary Poppins was born (both as a movie and as a book).  It was truly the delight of a spoonful of a sugar combined with flying a kite up to the highest height.

Haven't seen the film?
Watch the Saving Mr. Banks Movie Trailer