Saving Mr. Banks

I took a break from promoting my book (see info to the right) to watch a movie with TV Stevie last night. We chose Saving Mr. Banks. Although I’d never seen Disney’s Mary Poppins as a child, I did have the Disney version of the book (bright pink cover), and my Chromos watched the motion picture incessantly when they were younger. I am familiar with the story.

TV Stevie and I liked the movie (Saving Mr. Banks) a lot. Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson, Paul Giamatti, and Colin Farrell were great in their roles. I thought the pacing was a bit slow at times, but it was okay.

One question was never answered, and the writer in me is plagued by that, even though it was a minor thing.

But the thing that haunted me throughout the movie was the similarity of P.L. Travers’ childhood (as portrayed in the movie) to that of Francie Nolan in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  After reading about P.L. Travers life on Wikipedia and learning some of the poetic license used by the Saving Mr. Banks writers, I have to wonder if they were influenced by A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Or are dreaming, drunken Irish fathers a stereotype?