Christopher Robin (2018) Review!!!

Synopsis – A working-class family man, Christopher Robin, encounters his childhood friend Winnie-the-Pooh, who helps him to rediscover the joys of life.

My Take – As a kid growing up in the 90s, I was widely exposed to Disney Animation‘s Renaissance era, as the characters owned by the Mouse House conquered everything from our minds to our hearts. Among them were the adaption of author A.A. Milne‘s Winnie the Pooh and his stories that captivated childhood innocence, among many other things, hereby making them widely popular among children as well as adults. As a result was not surprising that Disney, now as a power house studio, which has been in a recent trend to remake almost everything into live action, decided to bring the characters of Hundred Acre Wood to the big screen, especially considering the mammoth successes adaptions of The Beauty and the Beast, The Jungle Book and Cinderella have become.

While the Marc Foster directed film does occasionally feel clumsy, predictable and silly, it manages to also be a pleasant experience. It really is hard not to be swept away in the nostalgia, reminding you why you fell in love with these cuddly characters in the first place, all the while making you long for a time when you could just sit and watch this characters with heartwarming joy.

The story follows Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor), who has come a long way from his adventures with his furry friends in the Hundred Acre Wood. As a troubled man who returned home from WWII to his wife, Evelyn (Hayley Atwell) and their young daughter, Madeline (Bronte Carmichael), Christopher seems to have lost all the glow of his younger days. Now working in a thankless job as the efficiency manager at Winslow Luggages in London, under a cruel boss, Giles Winslow, Jr. (Mark Gatiss), Christopher does all but give time to his wife and his studious yet somewhat sheltered daughter.

When told he must work rather than go on holiday to the country with his family, the last thing Christopher expects is a surprise visit from Winnie the Pooh (voiced by Jim Cummings), his stuffed teddy bear and childhood pal, who comes seeking his help to find their fellow friends, Tigger (voiced by Jim Cummings), Eeyore (voiced by Brad Garrett), Owl (voiced by Toby Jones), Piglett (voiced by Nick Mohammed), Rabbit (voiced by Peter Capaldi), Kanga (voiced by Sophie Okonedo), and Roo (voiced by Sara Sheen), who all seemed to be lost in a now-gray and foggy Hundred Acre Wood. Realizing he has no other option, Christopher joins Pooh on a journey of self-discovery where he discovers one of the true meanings of life.

There’s a mix-up, a car chase, and a whole bit about Christopher’s business plans being used as a saddle for Eeyore, an altogether this is more of melancholy affair than what might be expected from a Disney reboot of an animated classic, the film shifts the focus from Winnie the Pooh to his human friend and the perils of growing up and losing your soul. Directed by Marc Forster as a cross between Hook and his own Finding Neverland, the film opens with that sun-dappled House at Pooh Corner goodbye before leaping ahead several decades into bustling post-war London. It’s an admirable effort to do something different with these characters, even if it’s often as sticky-sweet as the honey that Pooh can’t stop eating.

The idea isn’t exactly original, a certain type of family film has always concerned itself with the sad distance between childhood and adulthood, and between children and adults. The film manages to walk a delicate line between maintaining its somber tone and infusing some joy into the proceedings and makes for an intriguing mixture of tones that preaches a return to childhood exuberance and frivolity. Where most of the Pooh adventures are silly, whimsical feats of seeking out enough honey to fill Pooh, the film falls on the spectrum of those episodes that were more serious. It’s about a new stage of life through McGregor’s character and it does a nice job of balancing the numerous emotional stresses that comes with growing up. This film does a fantastic job of portraying that line between kid and adult, and how both are important for raising the family.

Beneath its wistful tone, the film supplies the purest wish-fulfillment fantasy that a children’s film can offer adults: that our childhoods miss us as much as we miss them. The film written by three hugely acclaimed screenwriters, Tom McCarthy, Allison Schroeder, and Alex Ross Perry has a willingness to slow down and examine its characters’ emotions, which is what ultimately makes the film work. The best chunk of the film is the first act, in which Pooh wanders around postwar London, baffled at all the work everyone has to do.

Christopher has become quite the stolid grump, but Pooh has no time for grumpiness; he barely seems to understand what it is, instead responding to each of Christopher’s exasperated sighs with his trademark solipsistic maxims. “That’s a silly explanation,” Christopher grumbles as Pooh explains how he managed to appear in the real world. “Why thank you,” Pooh replies. Personally I appreciated how the film didn’t bother too long with having Christopher decide he’d lost his mind when he started seeing Pooh, nor does it belabor anybody else reaction to a walking, talking stuffed animal, in the sense, Pooh and his friends simply exist.

Much of the film is full of nostalgia and there are some lovely gently humorous touches, especially with Tigger and even more so Eeyore who has some of the best lines. There is a melancholy and wistfulness that is both appealing and moving, Pooh does bring tears to the eyes and his interplay, one of the film’s biggest strengths, with Christopher is sweet and humorous. Visually the film looks lovely, with handsome period detail, photography that is a mix of purposefully grim to idyllic and a beautifully rendered and quite faithful Hundred Acre Wood. The effects for Pooh and co. are delightful and looks great, maybe not quite how Disney portrayed them visually but not far off from the original drawings of the stories, of which the spirit is captured beautifully once in the Hundred Acre Wood, and their conditions of being forgotten for so long obvious in a realistic fashion.

When it comes to Pooh and the crew, the adventures are almost always cute and adorable. This film continues this trend, making sure to rope in all of the classic goodness, but modernize it to the new families of the modern age. It is perfect for kids as the stuffed animals bounce around the town, but also for the current parents who grew up with the cartoons like I did. Nevertheless, that nostalgic atmosphere will come in this charming adventure that somehow brings the feel of the classics into the new form of live action. Having that, the film is not perfect. While the narrative is fairly simple, it doesn’t have too many twists and turns for being a family film. Some viewers are definitely going to find this film to be as predictable as they come. Yes, that’s easily the weakest portion of this film as a whole. It pretty much hits a line drive to the family life lessons, to keep it perfect for its target audience. Along the way it also drags and loses its warmth and charm with the family and workplace scenes of the first half, which came over as over-sentimental and dreary.

A shame when the opening scene was so charming and sweet, and relatable for any child growing up. Anybody expecting a lot of depth shouldn’t really, only Pooh and Christopher Robin, done beautifully on both counts, grow here really. However, it’s really too bad that the always effective and charming Hayley Atwell is reduced to just playing the wife, even if she and Eeyore end up making a surprisingly robust comedy duo. However, Ewan McGregor does a great job here, a hard role to balance quite a number of emotions and reacting against nothing for much of the film but it is a nuanced performance, stern and uptight at first but mellows into childlike wonder. Young actress, Bronte Carmichael is also a delight to watch, so is the Mark Gatiss, who manages to be irksome as always.

However, my favorite aspect of the film was to witness Jim Cummings bring back life to both Pooh and Tigger once again. His voice alone is the source of Pooh’s comedy, bringing that sweet innocence with it that pulls at your heart strings like the silly old bear can. As for Tigger, he is still the energetic, manic tiger who doesn’t understand the word limits. While the other voice actors were good, Jim was the winner for me as a key pillar of the film. Brad Garrett is a standout as Eeyore, sadness at its funniest. Nick Mohammed doesn’t quite match the giant shoes left by John Fiedler, having voiced Piglet from the very beginning until his death in 2005, but the sweetness and timidity is captured nicely. While Toby Jones, Peter Capaldi, Sara Sheen and Sophie Okonedo play their parts well. On the whole, ‘Christopher Robin’ is an endearing family film which despite its predictability manages to be heartwarming and compelling.