Directed by:
Marc ForsterCinematography:
Matthias KoenigswieserCast:
Ewan McGregor, Hayley Atwell, Bronte Carmichael, Mark Gatiss, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Adrian Scarborough, Jim Cummings, Brad Garrett, Nick Mohammed (more)VOD (3)
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The young boy who loved embarking on adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood with a band of spirited and loveable stuffed animals, has grown up and lost his way. Now it is up to his childhood friends to venture into our world and help Christopher Robin remember the loving and playful boy who is still inside. (Walt Disney US)
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Even though Eeyore was my favourite nihilist before Bernard Black, I never became a member of the Winnie the Pooh fan club. Therefore, I was curious about Christopher Robin, a sort of sequel to the previous animated films, mainly because of the director and one of the screenwriters (mumblecore veteran Alex Ross Perry, whose influence is apparent especially in Eeyore’s heavy existential lines). ___ A total of five screenwriters alternated in and out of the project during its development, which may be the reason that the result seems so clumsy and disorderly, and that the film never gets a firm footing and does not work as family viewing, as Disney apparently intended. The story, which is about an overworked man focused on profit and performance who evidently suffers from PTSD due to the war and neglects his wife and daughter until he rediscovers his inner child thanks to a talking teddy bear (and a pig and tiger and donkey) or, rather, until he stops denying his existence and hiding the talking stuff animals from others, is mainly inconsistent. At times, it is basically a serious drama about an empty, bland existence, and at other times exaggerated slapstick (especially the scene with Gatiss, who is reminiscent of villainous capitalists from classic Hollywood movies). The style is predominantly very naturalistic, with desaturated colours, a hand-held camera lying alongside soldiers in the foxholes of World War II, and animated characters that look like actual soiled stuffed animals from the protagonist’s childhood. At still other times, however, its playfulness lends the film a touch of liberating magical realism á la Paddington (chasing Pooh around the station, the final pursuit). The rhythm of the narrative is similarly unbalanced, as it lacks momentum and a clear aim. The film is unable to decide whether Christopher’s priority should be his family life, his career or his relationship with Pooh, as if completely forgetting about one of these motifs for a moment and blindly following another instead of somehow cleverly combining all three. Some scenes take too long to get to the point (the fight with the Heffalump), while at other times a segment of the story explaining how a character gained certain information seems to be missing (for example, Madeline’s knowledge of the napping game). ___ The film is in large part too serious and sombre for children, and is even frightening during scenes from the fog-enshrouded Hundred Acre Wood (especially in combination with the red balloon, which is apparently intended as a reference to Albert Lamorisse’s film, but it’s impossible not to recall the psycho clown from It). For adults, the film is sloppy in dealing with the rules of the fictional world, unconvincing with the forced optimism of the conclusion and banal in its approach to psychology (the miraculous transformation of Robin’s thinking), relationships and corporate capitalism. ___ At a time when we need to more vigilantly watch where the current world is heading and act accordingly, the central idea that doing nothing and looking nostalgically to the past can improve our present and that our childhood misses us as much as we miss it is a bit off base (though fully in accordance with the constant churning-out of remakes of old films and the fetishisation of past decades, not to mention that the call to live in the present will certainly resonate strongly with today’s proponents of concepts such as mindfulness). Other films (such as Toy Story 3) have dealt with a similar idea more sensitively. But in the end, this idea was the main reason that Christopher Robin was made and more or less holds together. 60%
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Not so long ago, I saw the movie Goodbye Christopher Robin, so I was a little anxious that this movie will be in a similar vein. Nowadays, there is a Hollywood trend to make films dealing with the same topic in the span of one or several years. I don’t really get it, but whatever. However, Christopher Robin worked. You could say that it is even more playful than its predecessor. Besides, the casting of Ewan McGregor was a relatively good choice. A heart-warming family movie that found its place in my heart. Just like Winnie the Pooh.
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The saddest children's movie ever. Everything's in its place, even Hayley Atwell in her '40s costume... get your tissues ready. But if you are interested in the real story of A. A. Milne, try the competing film Goodbye Christopher Robin.
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At last, a full-fledged adaptation of Winnie the Pooh that retains the model’s deep reflection of childhood and adolescence, as well as its vital wisdom, playful humour and disarming philosophical nature contained in the kōan-like dialogue. Beyond that, it is a touching film from the life of plush toys, which is slightly disrupted by those passages with people blinded by their needlessly complicated problems.
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In real life, the idea involving vacations would mean constructing a holiday resort in the Hundred Acre Wood, where the rich could go to escape the bustle of the city and take photos of talking plush toys. This is a bizarre film that my heart won’t allow me to give a bad review to. Winnie the Pooh is simply a nice bear and you find yourself crossing your fingers for McGregor to decide to give up on the big corporation and begin reading children’s stories to his daughter. Despite the fact that the plush toys are a little eerily threadbare, the story doesn’t make sense in places and it is rather depressing for a kids’ story, there must be something for everyone in this movie. As I read somewhere here, it’s a film with a small brain but a big heart.
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