Saving Mr. Disney.

"Walt, now, you've gotta call me Walt!"

Part biography, part reliving of Mary Poppins, part Disney-propaganda, Saving Mr. Banks is the most recent title from Walt Disney to gras the cinemas, being released a week and a day ago here in Australia.

It tells the story of P.L. Travers' battles to stay true to her original idea of her books of Mary Poppins, against the seemingly unbeatable figure of Walt Disney himself, trying to turn it into a movie. But it also tells the story of her own childhood, and throws in a dash of nostalgia about the film into the bargain.

Now, of course, being a Walt Disney movie featuring Walt Disney, there's going to be some bias. And you do get some of that; the general positive spin is fairly obvious - the film very much tries to put it as Walt doing the best he can to accommodate Travers, despite her best efforts to the contrary (for example, declaring that there should be no red in the movie). It shows him empathising with her, particularly in two scenes - one where he shares with his music man his battle to keep Mickey Mouse from a big Hollywood producer when he was younger; and the other where he relates to Travers his own traumatic/developmental/life-changing childhood experience. And while these, no doubt, have their elements of truth to them, there still seems to be an extra spoonful of sugar here.

But, to be fair, they have the medicine as well. Walt is shown as a smoker, though never shown smoking (the closest we get is seeing him tap one out as Travers enters); and his self-belief (or rather, Disney-belief, particularly in the Disneyland scene) is quite overblown, it seems. All in all, however, the portrayal of Disney in the movie seems to have gone fairly well; it avoids both extremes, and lands somewhere around the middle.

What is more interesting, however, is the story of Travers' past. In bits and pieces during the film, we are given glimpses into her childhood; glimpses at her family, the family that gave inspiration to the Banks', and eventually, Mary Poppins herself. And, because of these peeks we get into her life, we begin to understand where she is at, on an emotional level; we start to realise that these people in her books are, in fact, family - that they are a lot more than words on a page; that it does, really, matter.

Of course, being a movie about Mary Poppins, the references to the movie are rife and frequent, both obvious ones (particularly songs in the movie; but also, notably, the appearance of Poppins' umbrella, and the emergence of the pineapple from the case) and not-so-obvious (for instance, the frequent references to the east wind). One scene in particular, where they are demonstrating the song of the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank to Travers, has constant flashes in between present and past, with her father giving the same exact words as a (quite drunken) speech to a crowd at a fair, being the manager of a bank. While needing a slight suspension of belief here, the connection between the worlds of past and present are highlighted and strengthened by the scene, helping along the audience's understanding.

Two other things in particular are also worth noting; firstly, a significant part is given to the limousine driver assigned to Travers, who relates to her (eventually) on her level, and who has some very good scenes with her. Also, a definite emphasis in the script approval process (because that is, after all, what Travers is doing) is actually the songs of the movie,and how they are developed and worked in, as well as how Travers reacts to these.

Not just a family movie full of feel-good emotions to stop the kids yapping for a good two hours, Saving Mr. Banks actually takes a good, hard look at some difficult issues that children face. It looks at depression; alcohol addiction; and maybe most of all, wanting to do justice to a memory - or perhaps, rather, wanting to make a father proud. It doesn't offer particular answers to these - or, at least, none concrete; perhaps it suggests that there are no true "answers" as such. The younger ones will love this one as well, but don't go in just expecting fairy floss and candy canes; this Disney has some punch to it.