It is fairly well known that PL Travers, who wrote the eight original Mary Poppins books, hated the 1964 Disney film adaptation. (“Are you unwell?” she asks Mr Banks after doing some light magic at him and in what we would, these days, identify as gas lighting.) The movie implies that Poppins is part of the longstanding dramatic tradition of the stranger as agent of moral change. She is a stoic who counters the stoicism of Mr Banks, an epitome of Englishness charged with the very American project of making those around her articulate their anxieties. Mary Poppins Returns is released on 19 December in the US and 21 December in the UK

Source: The Guardian November 23, 2018 06:00 UTC