CHRISTOPHER ROBIN: A Beautiful, Adult-Oriented Nostalgia Trip

A.A. Milne has been a national treasure since the earlier part of last century. His Winnie-the-Pooh books remain an icon of British childhood; the precious One Hundred Acre Wood – in no small part thanks to Walt Disney – a comforting reminder of the peculiar inquisitiveness of early youth.

That director Marc Forster would be the one to helm the studio’s fluffy return to this symbol of carefree whimsy isn’t surprising in the wake of his 2004 J.M. Barrie pic Finding Neverland; the childlike spirit of which can certainly be traced in Christopher Robin, though in a story ironically flightier than that surrounding the Peter Pan author.

A Return to Childhood

Thirty years after closing the chapter on his adventures with Winnie-the-Pooh to attend boarding school, Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor) seems to have forgotten the One Hundred Acre Wood and the delight it brought him. Now a put-upon efficiency expert at the revered Winslow Luggages, he hasn’t laughed in years, and is losing wife Evelyn and daughter Madeleine (a sprightly, but somewhat sidelined Hayley Atwell and Bronte Carmichael) to an all-consuming work ethic.

Meanwhile – just as miserable elsewhere – a bleary-eyed Pooh Bear wanders the foggy wastes of the One Hundred Acre Wood in search of his old friends, which leads him to a hollowed-out honey tree that leads conveniently right to London. Ever the optimist, Pooh braves the portal to find Christopher Robin and share many more good times.

It’s a setup that reminds – for better and for worse – of Spielberg’s Hook; worse because the comparison does nothing to affirm the quality of Forster’s work; better because Christopher Robin feels instantly more authentic than the 1991 film.

Bludgeoned by his boss’s unreasonable demands (Mark Gatiss is an eviller version of his crinkly-nosed Ratty in Wind in the Willows), Ewan McGregor’s Christopher gives the saddening impression of a boy kidnapped by the adult world, and it’s all too relieving to see his face light up at the sight of his boyhood friend speaking again with Jim Cummings’ winsome rasp. As a longstanding Milne fan and Disney-head, I felt the vaguest something in my eye.

I hesitate to use words like ‘universal’ or ‘widespread’ when talking about effect, simply because Christopher Robin is so heavily dependent on a nostalgia for Milne’s world of play. I’d imagine I wouldn’t have felt nearly as much joy in seeing full-size Christopher fending off an invisible Heffalump with his briefcase if I hadn’t grown up doing the same thing; those who didn’t might very well spend these precious sequences wondering when they’ll get to see something as lovably chaotic as in the Paddington films.

Similarly, Pooh is obviously inspired by the earlier Disney characterisations Cummings also voiced, but here he’s decidedly reliant upon Christopher to entertain. His constant wistfulness in the first act wears rather quickly, and it’s easy to see how those with no personal connection to the silly old bear may end up yawning through his ambling meditations.

This said, his bluntness becomes an amusing contrast to the protagonist’s oh-so British antsiness, becoming something of a double-act in one marvellous scene at a train station, which gratefully requires neither nostalgia nor familiarity to enjoy. Even speaking as someone with a lot of love for Milne’s classics, it was my favourite scene in the film.

Mourning Lost Youth

It’s a shame the comedy wasn’t taken further, because the concept of an inquisitive band of children’s toys run amok in uptight post-war Britain is enchantingly funny, regardless of their cultural significance. Little is done with the idea, however (aside from that wonderful station sequence), with most of the laughter arising from the cast of familiar voices.

Toby Jones and Peter Capaldi share great chemistry as the One Hundred Acre natives, with Capaldi’s refreshing East London Rabbit offsetting well the blithering recollections of Jones’ Owl. Their bickering is interjected now and then by Sophie Okonedo’s rational Kanga and Sara Sheen’s Roo, who could’ve supplied the inquisitive charm of Beauty and the Beast’s Chip had the script found time away from Christopher and Jim Cummings’ familiarly husky Pooh Bear.

Meanwhile, despite Cummings’ thankfully mellower Tigger and Nick Mohammed’s darling performance as Piglet, my standout is Brad Garrett, whose deflated one-liners as the hapless Eeyore charm as much as they hilariously sum up the band’s invariable calamities.

Admittedly, the cast appear to want to pursue light-heartedness more than its script allows. Instead, there’s a deeply yearning tone overlaying Alex Ross Perry, Tom McCarthy and Allison Schroeder’s tripartite script, which inevitably leads it to explore themes that require one to have experienced adulthood – with all its trappings and pressures – to make a significant impact. The emotional heft rides on Christopher and his friction with the adult world.

Far from the jargon-spouting drone that was Hook’s Peter Banning, McGregor’s protagonist seems always to mourn the childhood his boarding school education snatched away. When he spends the night being rained on in a Heffalump trap after calling futilely for help, there’s a sympathy there that could have a hard time registering across age groups.

But Christopher Robin will at least appeal visually. Matthias Koenigswiser captures the One Hundred Acre Wood with the ever so slightly golden tint of a late summer afternoon, and the toys have the disarming look of having been left on a dusty shelf for 30 years with some of the loveliest CGI effects this year.

Conclusion: Christopher Robin

I almost wish I hadn’t grown up asking for bedtime stories about Heffalumps and Woozles, because I feel like my nostalgia for the Milne tales and their animated renditions has, for me, tinted Forster’s contribution to Disney’s sizeable franchise. But the sheer relief Christopher Robin finds in returning to simple childhood pleasures suggests the nostalgic is exactly Forster’s intended viewer, however polarizing such an approach may be.

The decidedly wistful tone underpinning the entire thing doesn’t help the film’s accessibility, for it requires one to have felt the weight of adult expectations to sympathize with Ewan McGregor‘s wide-eyed Christopher. The few clowning sequences are delightful and work independently as fun panto sketches, so it is a wonder why comedy wasn’t brought into play more.

Perhaps Christopher Robin’s most universal element, then, is its visuals. You needn’t be familiar with Pooh and Co. to admire their beguiling CGI renditions, and there’s a comfort to be found in rural Britain comparable to Forster’s Finding Neverland. It’s just a shame that pretty things tend so quickly to fade in the memory.

Christopher Robin is out now in the UK and USA. All international release dates are here.