Robert Sherman, Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Bradley Whitford, photo by Richard Segal
Saving Mr. Banks is a force to be reckoned with at this year’s Oscars, make no mistake about it. Sure to touch the heart of many, voters and moviegoers alike, it is exactly the kind of film people will put up on their HD flat screen over the holidays, the one you can sit anyone down in front of, and one of the most uplifting stories of the year. More than that, Saving Mr. Banks is a moving, thoughtful tribute to both Walt Disney and P.L. Travers without shortchanging either of them. The film drew passionate applause at last night’s opening AFI Fest.
Word out of London after the film premiered seemed somewhat deflated compared to expectations. But those lowered expectations will work in the film’s favor now as people discover its many riches — chief among them, the astonishing performance of Emma Thompson as Travers. Dare I say it is as though she’s been preparing for this role her entire career — there is a little bit of every character she’s ever played and much of what we know about Thompson herself: her acute sensitivity to the oddness in people, her tribute to Mary Poppins with Nanny McPhee, her attention to detail, her own work as a writer adapting Jane Austen for Ang Lee and how hard it was for her to edit a writer she greatly admired to make it a more entertaining film. She is very much in the running to win another Best Actress Oscar with this performance.
Tom Hanks is having another year for the record books. He shows no signs of slowing down as an actor any time soon. And though most people overlooked his brilliant display of acting in last year’s Cloud Atlas, they will not be able to overlook his work in Captain Phillips, nor here, as Walt Disney. Hanks’ Disney is a revelation. Without giving too much away, he uncovers what has been hard to understand about the icon — the “why” behind the empire he built as the happiest place on earth. In both films he really brings it in the final moments of each. The smart and versatile Hanks plays two characters who couldn’t be more different, and yet he finds the humanity in the flawed Disney, and the vulnerability in the heroic Captain Phillips.
The other standouts in the film are Colin Farrell as P.L. Travers’ sick and alcoholic father and Paul Giamatti as Ralph, Travers’ driver. The costumes, the art direction, the score, the cinematography and John Lee Hancock’s direction make Saving Mr. Banks a formidable Oscar contender across the board.
A word about the screenplay. If Saving Mr Banks strikes gold at the Oscars, with an original screenplay co-written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith Sue Smith, it would be the first film to win Best Picture written solely by a woman or two women. What better tribute to a film about a female writer than to have the story told by women writers? This provides Saving Mr. Banks with an opportunity to make Oscar history. *[Oops: Vicki Baum wrote the screenplay for 1932 Best Picture winner Grand Hotel.]
Emma Thompson has shifted the Oscar Best Actress race because she’s playing a more likable/admirable character than some of the other frontrunners. That usually counts for something. When you add in Judi Dench and possibly Amy Adams, you have a real race indeed. Thompson’s Travers is, it must be said, a pain in the ass. The Disney team knew they potentially had a hit (Mary Poppins ended up being the highest grossing film of 1964) but standing in their way was Travers, who couldn’t abide the Disney “flim flam” he wanted to infuse the film with. Thompson takes it right to the edge, to the point where you think you can’t stand another second of this woman — but the film cuts expertly backwards in time, telling us about Travers’ own childhood story, and suddenly her facade melts to reveal a vulnerable young girl who loved her father.
Photos by Richard Segal
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Hanks is excellent as CAPTAIN PHILLIPS and his nomination’d be deserved…but I’m sorry that Colin Farrell (who’s still waiting for his first nom) won’t get for his Father Figure
I would love it if Tom Hanks were a double nominee this year. He was awesome in Captain Phillips but I don’t see him beating Ejiofor.
Tom Wilkinson should have won that award. Twelve years later, I still can’t get out of my head the way he walks down the hall of the school before he tells his wife the news. Devastatingly natural performance.
I fully agree with Bryce on Hackman, a criminal oversight. Then I’m biased, I have a very weak spot for Wes Anderson, and The Royal Tenenbaums is his crowning achievement.
I think the way Anderson avoids the arc of a typical redemption story (he never makes Royal’s eventual kind-of-redemption obvious in any explicit way) is the sign of a very gifted filmmaker.
Maybe the most potent update of the JD Salinger template in contemporary American popular culture?
I was just going to list actors who shouldn’t have been considered before Gene Hackman (THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS) for a Best Actor nomination that’s all.
Russell Crowe
Sean Penn
Will Smith
Denzel Washington
From that 2001 line-up, only Tom Wilkinson delivered a worthier performance than Hackman. Shame on AMPAS.
In 1992, Hackman won as many precursors as, say, mo’nique for precious. When the train’s moving like that, it takes something weird to derail it (like Russell Crowe throwing a guy on a wall or something).
This could be a train year in Best Supporting Actor. (It certainly won’t be in Best Actress.) if it is, it’ll be more like Christopher Plummer in Beginners. Remember when it was him vs. Von Sydow? Before Oscar night, you knew it would be Plummer because he’d won everything. The Oscars weren’t sure and they let the previous voters make up their minds for them. (I doubt even half of them watched Beginners. Quick, any AMPAS member: what happens at the end?)
I sense a similar uncertainty this year. Everyone has a little weakness. If Leto or Hanks or Fassbinder get going…it’s a Plummer train
I haven’t seen DallasBC but given that Leto treats acting as a part-time gig, I’m not sure there will be motivation to give him an Oscar over someone like Fassbender, who’s been cranking out the films the last few years. I just think that maybe many will think that the nomination is reward enough for someone like Leto.
The Academy doesn’t like to give Oscars to drag queens. Nominations, yes. Wins, no. Of course there’s always the exception, which I guess is William Hurt for Best Actor in “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”
Usually they (the Actors Branch) feel that the dress and the make-up are doing the acting. Remember Jaye Davidson’s astonishing performance in “The Crying Game” that Irish movie about the IRA that Neal Jordon directed? He lost to Gene Hackman, who is memory serves, was the villain in “Unforgiven.” A Leto/Fassbender parallel?
Usually they (the Actors Branch) feel that the dress and the make-up are doing the acting.
Right. That’s what actors all think. Actors think actors don’t act. Actors think clothes are the actors. Exactly right. We can never rely on actors to understand anything about acting, right Stephen?
In your list of “drag queen” Oscar winners you left out Gwyneth Paltrow, Linda Hunt and Hillary Swank.
This is the one contender that I am not looking forward to. Like having an ice cream soda.
So many contenders, so few slots. So many good performances this year. I think it’s time for the AMPAS to consider expanding the number of slots in the acting (and directing and screenwriting) categories. Seven would be an adequate number. 🙂
Love the radiantly sane Emma Thompson. Wish she’d go back to brunette ASAP!
Hoisted by my own petard! It should be around FOUR million pounds sterling.
Sasha,
Who is this Jane “Austin” of whom you write? Is she an unconscionably impoverished relation of the ten million pounds sterling Steve Austin?
🙂
Boring.
While “Mary Poppins” was the first movie I ever attended, I have no particular love for it. Will this lessen my chances of liking “Saving Mr. Banks”?
I figured AFI Opening Night was the beginning of this movie’s Oscar narrative. I think that is turning out to be correct. After seeing 12 Years A Slave, I feel that movie has the best shot to take home the prize, but this movie has as good a shot as any other (actually a better shot than most) to upset it, as ridiculous as I might find that result to be.
Saving Mr. Banks is a really, really good movie, better than I would’ve ever expected Hancock to deliver. And Emma Thompson’s performance is indeed one of the best of the year. Sasha is right on the money that this is the movie “you can put in front of everyone and they will get it”. Its also an easy pick out of a screener pile for Academy members who want to see something satisfying. But I would be saddened to see it overtake 12YAS. That movie is one for the ages.
Similarly, Gravity is a phenomenal, game-changing achievement, one whose influence will reverberate through cinema for years to come. It also happens to be one of the most entertaining movies of the year. But it would feel somehow wrong to award that movie, as influential as I’m sure it will be, over 12YAS. It would be like Jurassic Park beating Schindler’s List.
The only other 2 movies that appear to have a shot at winning, imo, are the two big unseens, American Hustle and The Wolf Of Wall Street. But that narrative will become clearer as they are seen and assessed. I’d put my money right now on 12YAS, and I’d be very happy with that result.
“But those lowered expectations will work in the film’s favor …” Not really understanding the logic here. Tom Hanks will get nominated for Captain Phillips, so he really does not have to worry. If the reaction was underwhelming, there is no way Emma Thompson will win over Cate Blanchett or Sandra Bullock. She may not even be nominated if audiences reject it.
I trust Sasha’s verdict so now this is how I think the acting categories will go :
ACTRESS – Cate Blanchett, Sandra Bullock, Judi Dench, Emma Thompson, Meryl Streep (sure, Winslet is always a contender and there is a chance – though a small one – that an ingenue like Felicity Jones, Brie Larson, Sophie Nelisse or Adele Excharpoulos will pull off a surprise, also now that her ‘Her’ turn failed to gain much traction, I think Adams’s Hustle campaign will move to supporting…mark my words!)
ACTOR – Chiwetel Ejiofor, Matthew McConaughey, Robert Redford, Tom Hanks, Hugh Jackman (sure the usual suspects (Dern, Whitaker, Jordan, Isaac) have a great chance to make the cut and we should probably watch out for the two high-profile unseens (DiCaprio, Bale),too, still this is the five I would bet money on today)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS – Lupita Nyong’O, Oprah Winfrey, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Garner, Amy Adams (watch out for the wonderful actors’ actor Sarah Paulson and Scarlett Johansson who has a killer narrative this year!)
SUPPORTING ACTOR – Jared Leto, Michael Fassbender, Tom Hanks, Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper (Barkhad Abdi and Daniel Brühl could be the flashy unknowns with the potential to surprise, and if Nebraska hits all the right notes with the Academy, maybe even Forte could sneak in, not to mention who knows who could still emerge from Wolf of Wall Street and American Hustle…well, probably Hill and Cooper that’s who)
P.S. For the win, my money is on Dench, Ejiofor, Nyong’O and Leto . If Leto indeed wins, the Academy may think that Dallas Buyers Club got enough, but I absolutely think McConaughey will remain a major threat for Ejiofor’s victory up until Jennifer Lawrence opens that envelope. A popular movie star playing against type in a likable role that required physical transformation and in a highly acclaimed film no less (84 on Metacritic, ALL 38 reviews in the green zone), is rarely the kind of scenario the Academy fails to embrace. So if this turns into a sleeper at the Box Office and/or receives a BP nod, Best Actor will be most certainly a nailbiter !
If this movie (which I haven’t seen yet) turns out to be fairly good AND A CROWD PLEASER, the rest of the pictures’ producers need to worry.
OT: Saw “Dallas Buyers Club” today. Chiwetel has real competition.
I saw Captain Phillips yesterday and after Tom Hanks’ final scene all I can say is that the Academy better give him an Oscar for SOMETHING, rewarding him for a phenomenal, dare I say, career-best year.
Sure a few would be close calls (1993 – Philadelphia, Sleepless in Seattle; 1995 – Apollo 13, Toy Story; 1998 – Saving Private Ryan, You’ve got mail; 1999 – The Green Mile, Toy Story 2; 2002 – Road to Perdition, Catch me if you can), BUT if Captain Phillips and Saving Mr. Banks BOTH deliver 100M+ domestic Box Office AND Best Picture nominations, it will be a first for Hanks after a ridiculously succesful career of 30 years…then again, it is safe to assume he would have pulled this rare feat off in the past, had the BP race been expanded back then. For example in a field of 10, I’m sure both his 2002 hits would have made the cut.
I want the record to show that I jumped on the Emma Thompson bandwagon when I saw Chris Price driving it by me.
Now let’s all sit back and watch Sasha slowly go insane as this Kings Speeches its way past ’12 Years A Slave’ to the winners circle….
I don’t get it. Why keep bringing up CLOUD ATLAS now when last year you kicked it to the curb for LINCOLN? I knew you liked it but I didn’t think it was close to your favorite. I remember that your daughter was a fan. It made me think that with such good taste she might be adopted. 😛 Now you keep bringing it up a year late. Sorry but since CLOUD ATLAS was my favorite movie last year and I said so consistently, it’s kind of annoying. You could have helped. But if memory serves, Ryan told me that talking it up was a waste of time.
Seriously, all you all. Just support the ones you actually like. At least you’ll go down swinging and not with a whimper.
But if memory serves, Ryan told me that talking it up was a waste of time.
My memory is pretty good, especially when it comes down to remembering all the ingenious things I hear myself say. But I sure don’t ever remember saying that.
I think at some point, for all of us, it becomes clear which movies are being skimmed off the top of the wanking butter churn at the Academy Creamery. At that point we can write 75 posts about Looper or End of Watch or Cloud Atlas and all we accomplish is preaching a sermon to a very tiny choir. When we reach the point in awards season when even a movie’s distributor has given up hope, the more we cling to those movies the more we risk looking like lonely raving nuts on a street corner. We have to choose our battles, Antoinette.
“Waste of time”? No.
Wisest use of our time, yes, we try to do that.
Did you say daddy issues?!?
Be afraid, non-Thompson nominees. Be very afraid.
I’m not afraid to say what we’re all thinking: if the Academy has basically gone sentimental with some patina of history/redemption (slumdog, the artist, Argo) then this film has a great chance…of killing the souls of everyone on this site.
At the very least, I smell a down-to-the-wire fear that reminds me of the one for Little Miss Sunshine 7 years ago
Not only Streep. None of the characters portrayed by Cate Blanchett,
Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, and Julie Delpy are sweetie-pie cuddle-bunnies.
And Sandra Bullock murdered George Clooney in outer space.
Thanks to twitter pal Dillon Rosenblatt who reminds us that Vicki Baum wrote the screenplay for 1932 Best Picture winner Grand Hotel. Fact-check now added to the post.
Surely any of this film’s Best Picture aspirations will be sunk by the inevitable “Walt Disney was a Nazi sympathizer” backlash, right?
Middle-brow contenders like Saving Mr. Banks don’t usually have to face strong backlash. It’s films which unite critics and arthouse audiences (and often wide audiences) in broad praise alike which do. Brokeback Mountain, The Dark Knight, Zero Dark Thirty – it’s easy for the minority to topple films like those because they have the countenance of potential awards behemoths. Saving Mr. Banks will always look like a bit of an underdog to the general public, particularly if the critical reception turns out to be less than superb.
I don’t think that BANKS will be too much of a hit at the B O , but more importantly , it will be popular among those 60 yearish academy voters , many of them old enough to remember Walt , a movie making icon ; after all , they do tend to like movies about making movies a la The Artist and Argo
Hanks is a very serious contender for BSA…the so called ”most trustworthy man in America ” playing one of the most iconic Founding Fathers of Hollywood , Walt Disney ; if Fassbender is beatable than Hanks , on his way to a third Oscar , is surely the one to do it !
Fassbender , with the momentum of a winning movie behind him , is still probably the safest bet
Even if it doesn’t win any major prize, I predict massive box office numbers for it. Who doesn’t want to watch a movie about Walt Disney, and the creation of Mary Poppins with Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson. It was a hit even on paper.
So is it a force to be reckoned with because it’s going to be nominated for things which basically a ton of people have already predicted only now it’s more of a certainty or is it a force because it can win picture, director, actress, supporting actor, etc?
Very glad to hear this! Excited about this one.
Hanks-Leto-Fassbender could be an interesting supporting race. I sure would love it if Hanks won another Oscar. I keep thinking about his final moments of “Captain Phillips”.
Brian, are you sure you’re not Jeffrey Wells? That’s exactly what he said! However, Sasha’s proclamations have to be taken very seriously. She doesn’t make statements like this lightly.
I loved “Mary Poppins”. I used to play hookie from school to go hide out in the Radio City Music Hall where it would play with the Rockettes doing a MORNING performance! They don’t do that anymore, needles to say. How many times did I see it like that? I can’t remember.
Nobody ever found out.
All fired up with Sasha’s rave. I now can’t wait to see it. Jeff Wells couldn’t abide Emma Thompson in this. But yes, I don’t think Mary Louise Streep is as locked as people think she could be. Remember how everyone in “The Hours” got nominated, except her? And that was a better, subtle-er performance. And Dame Judi is no a shoe-in either, IMHO. But you can’t accuse her of being OTT like Mary Lou.
Emma Thompson has shifted the Oscar Best Actress race because she’s playing a more likable/admirable character.
Veiled shot at Streep? 🙂
I can’t wait to see this film!
Surely any of this film’s Best Picture aspirations will be sunk by the inevitable “Walt Disney was a Nazi sympathizer” backlash, right?
What a great year for movies this is turning out to be!
sorry to disagree, but I found it sappy, clunky, tired and old-fashioned.
and Emma Thompson’s shrill, grating, one-note performance drove me up a wall.
So can we count it as one of the top 5? Is John Lee Hancock in for Best Director? Best Editing nomination as well?