15 Major Historical Inaccuracies That Undermine Famous Movies
6. Saving Mr Banks Uses A Lot Of Artistic License
Saving Mr Banks is an utterly delightful movie that's a highly funny and profoundly moving drama about the creative process... and unfortunately lots of it is made up.
Not of all is inaccurate; the film displays how difficult P.L. Travers was as a person and her troubled childhood accurately enough, but a fair amount of artistic license is used. For example, Ralph the driver (Paul Giamatti) is actually a composite of several drivers that Travers used, while Walt Disney himself was away when some of the film's events took place. As well as this, sorry to ruin your childhoods but Disney was not lovable like Tom Hanks; he was a racist, sexist, antisemitic and highly difficult individual, so the film romanticizes him.
The incredible ending is also not quite truthful. P.L. Travers was seen crying at the Mary Poppins premiere but she claimed it was because she felt Disney had ruined Mary Poppins, not because she was moved by it like in SMB. This does feel dishonest, but in fairness to the film one could see it as an interpretive bit of history. Travers did watch the film at least one more time and said she thought the film was good on its own terns, but not similar to her books, so it is possible she liked the adaptation later on in real life.
It's still a wonderful movie, but it should be seen as a fictionalized look at historical events rather than a particularly accurate one.