The terrific performances from Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks withstanding, Saving Mr. Banks suffers from jarring shifts in tone and poor mishandling of structure, as past clashes with present in this true story of filmmaking as therapy during the creation of a beloved family classic.

Movies about making movies has become the new music biopic. You know, that Oscar bait film where a popular actor swings for the fences in their portrayal of iconic singer and their determined quest to bring their art to life. Instead of Johnny Cash in Walk the Line or Ray Charles in Ray, now you have Anthony Hopkins playing Alfred Hitchcock in Hitchcock or Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe in My Weekend with Marilyn.

Saving Mr. Banks features quite the doozy: Tom Hanks portraying Walt Disney. Yet don’t let the marketing fool you. Hanks is the supporting act here to Emma Thompson, who portrays Mary Poppins creator P.L. Travers. To call her an unlikeable character would be an understatement. Babies? They’re a nuisance. Flattery? Wasted upon deaf ears. Politeness? Patience? Gratitude? Character traits that are absent.

Thompson – in what might be her finest performance – owns the role. Owens every out putdown, every sharp witted criticism, every stubborn shriek of “no, no, no!” that pierces through the souls of the employees at Disney – such as Mary Poppins screenwriter Dan DaGradi (Bradley Whitford), famous composers the Richard and Robert Sherman (Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak) and ol’ Walt himself – who would dare make a creative suggestion that doesn’t meet her approval. (No music, no animation, and no Dick Van Dyke chief among them).

The best moments in the film are those that focus on the power play between Walt Disney and Travers, as the iconic man behind the mouse uses his smooth, persistent charm to try and ease Travers’ vice like grip on his testicles (with she owning the creative rights and thus the upper edge). Indeed fans of Mary Poppins will get a kick out of how these behind the scenes squabbles almost derailed the whole project.

What most won’t find appealing is director John Lee Hancock’s (he who helmed The Blind Side, perhaps the worst Oscar nominated film in recent memory) mishandling of the films transitions from light hearted comedic drama in 1961 Hollywood, to traumatic coming of age story in 1906 Queensland, Australia.

It is there that we find the source of Travers’ bitch complex, in the relationship with her free spirited, alcoholic father Travers Robert Goff. Playing the role of Travers’ father is Colin Farrell, who hams it up to such a twitchy, arm flailing degree that he robs his character (and his relationship with his daughter) of any grounding, easily making it one of Farrell’s worst performances.

While the Australian sequences do add clarity to Travers’ ill-mannered persona, in Hancock’s hands it’s all just a matter of subtraction by addition, and is a glaring example of how not to utilise flashbacks in a film.

The real entertainment and dramatic juice is found in the offices of Walt Disney company, as Travers the dragon lady takes on Disney the ever patient, moustached creator of Mickey. More focus and time on these sequences and Saving Mr. Banks could have been this years The King’s Speech. Instead we have a “shoulda, woulda, coulda” situation, with just enough sugar in these wonderful performances to keep down the bitterness of Hancock’s sloppy direction.