The movie Saving Mr. Banks isn’t your typical Hollywood movie of recent times. The movie has no violence or explicit sexual scenes. No one is tortured or blown up or chased by bad people.

It even begins with a flashback. The flashback has no exciting “inciting incidents,” merely a little girl and her father playing an imaginary game in an Australian park.

Saving Mr. Banks is loosely based on the making of the popular movie Mary Poppins by Walt Disney. That movie, in turn, was based on books by Pamela Lyndon Travers. According to accounts of Travers’ actual relationship with the making of the movie, she remained disappointed with Mary Poppins. Thus, a great part of Saving Mr. Banks, it would seem, is fiction. Nevertheless, like all good fiction, it draws us in and gives us insight.

As movies go these days, it begins slowly. We are taken in by the characters and the choices they make, some heartbreaking. We see Travers’ father, a bank employee, unable to overcome his alcoholism, humiliating his family, finally dying too young and unable to keep his promise to his daughter to “never leave her.”

Walt Disney’s own severe childhood is counterpart to the tragedy of the author. His playful films are his answer. He overcame severity by clinging to his gift of whimsy and using it to bring a bit of fun to the world. Suffering is redeemed in part.

Seemingly unsuccessful people may do good things for their children that live on.The work-driven Mr. Banks of Mary Poppins, the audience is given to understand, carries a piece of Travers’ father. Mr. Banks does love his children. This Victorian father is even capable, finally, of flying kites with them.