SAVING MR BANKS ***

Of course "Saving Mr Banks" is sentimental, that's only to be expected; this is Disney, after all, in every sense of the word but John Lee Hancock's wonderful film is also deeply moving and hugely entertaining. Indeed I don't think I've enjoyed a film quite as much this year. The story, or rather the stories, for there are two of them, for anyone not familiar with the plot, involves the making of the film "Mary Poppins" or rather how the author of the original books, P L Travers, came to relinquish the rights to one, Walt Disney. The other story is about how a young girl in Australia in the early years of the last century came to acknowledge that the father she loved above all else had feet of clay but was neither angel or devil but simply an ordinary, flawed individual. That little girl, of course, grows up to be P L Travers and that father, in need of saving, becomes her Mr Banks.

So this is a serious film as well as a sentimental film and it deals with very real and very deep emotions but it does so in a way that is light, funny and universally appealing. It is beautifully written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith and superbly directed by Hancock. It's also brilliantly played by a first-rate ensemble cast. Tom Hanks makes Uncle Walt something of a hugely likeable rogue who will use the most subtle kind of emotional blackmail to get what he wants. It's a grandstanding performance, to be sure, and if he doesn't win an Oscar for "Captain Phillips"

then surely his performance here should make him something of a front-runner. There's lovely work, too, from Paul Giametti as Travers' driver during her time in Hollywood and, somewhat surprisingly, from Colin Farrell as the father who becomes the real-life inspiration for Mr Banks. But ultimately this is Emma Thompson's show; as the starchy author Thompson turns in a career-best performance that again must surely make her a front-runner in the Best Actress stakes. What's most remarkable is just how close Thompson comes to the real-life Travers as can be evidenced from listening to the tapes we hear over the closing credits. Yes, this movie is a total delight and I loved every supercalifragilisticexpialidocious minute of it.