Rating: 5/5

“Saving Mr. Banks is the best movie I have seen in 5 years.” This is the statement I made walking out of the theater. Bold. After all, could I really evaluate all the movies I’d seen in the last 5 years at that moment in time? No.

In the past 5 years we watched the following: Dark Knight, Tropic Thunder, Iron Man, Pineapple Express, Nick and Norah, Slumdog, Frost/Nixon, Gran Torino, The Wrestler, Revolutionary Road. Now, out of the above, I’d say that Dark Knight is revolutionary, but was it what Gran Torino, The Wrestler, and Revolutionary Road were?

We saw Avatar, Up, Sherlock Holmes, The Hangover, The Hurt Locker, Crazy Heart, Inglorious Basterds, Up in the Air, I Love You Man, Star Trek, Away We Go, The Ugly Truth. Again, another round of good movies, but Up in the Air, Crazy Heart, The Hurt Locker, and Away We Go seemed above the rest. When we watched these movies, we felt different afterward.

We marveled after Toy Story 3, Inception, Deathly Hallows Part 1, Tangled, Despicable Me, How to Train Your Dragon, The Social Network, Black Swan, The Fighter, The King’s Speech, Shutter Island, Kick-Ass, and Easy A.

Some of these movies stood out from the others. Why? Because they made us feel. For those of us that grew up with Toy Story, and had action figures of Woody and Buzz, the end of Toy Story 3 caused an enormous amount of nostalgia within us, causing us to realize that as we grow up, change happens, but it isn’t always bad. The King’s Speech inspired us to believe that we can do things we don’t think we can if we push hard enough. How to Train Your Dragon reminded us that though we are broken human beings, we are not alone. Rather, there are others broken in the same way as we are. The Wrestler, Revolutionary Road, Crazy Heart, Toy Story 3. These were all incredible movies. Because they made us feel. They made us look at life differently. And they made us look at ourselves differently.

Western post-modern culture is drifting towards a kind of desensitization of humanity, and part of that is shown through the loss of emotionality and human connectivity in all forms of society. More and more, we tread on others to get ahead. More and more we sacrifice connection to better serve ourselves or our immediate concerns. We are losing our ability to feel. We are losing our ability to be human.

“Saving Mr. Banks is the best movie I have seen in 5 years.” Maybe not. But it is refreshing. Why? Because it makes us feel human and connected. Emma Thompson’s portrayal of P.L. Travers, author of Mary Poppins makes us re-realize that we are broken human beings, often products of a number of circumstances, and that we can experience the loss of innocence and the loss of our connection to humanity. Tom Hanks’ portrayal of Walt Disney caused us to believe that though one’s innocence can indeed be lost, our humanity can be redeemed and restored in new and timeless ways. We can re-find our humanity. We can rediscover human connection. And we can stumble upon commonalities that bring us together.

Many will say that Saving Mr. Banks is nothing more than a positive publicity stunt for Disney, a propaganda film, or a film used to hero-ize Disney and take advantage of Travers. I understand those concerns. But the movie speaks truth in a number of ways, and by the end, the audience is so well-connected with the characters, they cannot help but feel.

There is no doubt in my mind that Disney went for the heart-strings in their latest endeavor. But if you ask me, these movie-makers did so because they believe that despite the wrongs one does in his or her life, despite the pain we all can cause, despite the unconnectedness we can experience, we can still be redeemed by love. We can rediscover what it means to be human and what it means to live together, in pain and in joy.