Film Review - Christopher Robin (PG)

It's not stress. It's Pooh.

Disney's new Winnie the Pooh film is a fascinating hybrid beast full of talking stuffed ones. While last year's Goodbye Christopher Robin was a biographical tale of Pooh-writer A. A. Milne's relationship with his real-life son, this new movie takes the fictionalised version of the boy from Milne's stories and explores what happens when he grows up. It's not dissimilar to what Steven Spielberg did in Hook for the character of Peter Pan. The result is a story more about male mid-life crisis than talking animals, one that's a genuine oddity but worth your exploration along with Hundred Acre Wood.

The story begins as young Christopher Robin has one final rambunctious party with Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, Eeyore, etc, before leaving that idyllic world and entering one called 'growing up'. Decades later Christopher is struggling in a frugal post-WW2 London, the pressures of work in a luggage company having turned him into a stuffy adult with insufficient time for his loving wife and daughter. Then Pooh pops miraculously via tree-trunk into his life, as if conjured from the recesses of his tired mind. The bear's mission (as much as his fuzzy brain understands it) is to help Christopher rediscover both the animal companions of his childhood and his joy in living. 

There's a lot that I loved about this film, not least the way it brings Pooh back to his archetypally English roots. (The Americanised version never felt entirely right to me.) Jim Cummings returns with his iconic voices from the Disney antimations - a husky Pooh and a spluttering Tigger - but these are blended with the likes of Toby Jones and Sophie Okonedo (Owl and Kanga respectively). The settings are muted in colour but gorgeous, whether the untamed parts of rural England or austere late '40s London. It all has a restrained British feel to it, with a smattering of references - including one memorably bouncy Tigger song - to the primary-coloured cartoon features. A very canny compromise.

The toy animals are a saggy, threadbare bunch, but brought to vivid life and interacting often hilariously with the real-life setting. Much of the film's joy is watching these clumsy anarchic toys engage with the stuffiness of the adult human world. (Having said that, I enjoyed Eeyore's depressive donkey musings on life even more than Tigger's ADHD.) Ewan McGregor is meanwhile perfect as the middle-aged curmudgeon with a boyish spirit lurking beneath. His philosophical chats with Pooh are touching as well as funny, while his revelations regarding the type of grown-up he has become provide real pause for thought.

And that is, perhaps, my main reservation regarding the film. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but have no idea how a child audience would react to the plight of this male 40-something protagonist. True there's plenty of mayhem involving honey-spillages and getting stuck halfway through tree-trunks, and spirited young Bronte Carmichael is given quite a lot to do as Christopher's daughter Madeline. But ultimately this is centred on the dad and his own quest for self-understanding. (So was Mary Poppins admittedly, but that movie was all through the children's eyes; this one is largely not.) 

Is this a family film that will have more profundity for adults, or one for grown-ups that might additionally engage the children in the audience? Additionally, if it's all a metaphor for what's going on in older Christopher Robin's mind, then how come other people can see the talking toys as well? That's just weird! Alright, I'm probably overthinking it - because this film is witty and creative, funny and moving. And if you like well-crafted and imaginative storytelling set in a nostalgic world, that's maybe enough to make it work. Now - who's for a game of Pooh Sticks?

Gut Reaction: Charmed and consistently taken by surprise at where this film went. Plus Pooh and Eeyore made me laugh a lot.

Where Are the Women?: Hayley Atwell makes the most of what she's given as wife Evelyn, and Carmichael is pleasingly non-bratty as Madeline.

Ed's Verdict: 7.5/10. While not achieving the perfect family balance of Paddington 2, Christopher Robin is still worth your time for its sheer artistry. And for parents - it has a message your young kids will want you to embrace.