PADDINGTON IN PERU: The Bear Goes South

Paddington is back! A full seven years after Paddington 2 won the Academy Award for Best Picture, the Palme d’Or, and the Nobel Peace Prize, the lovable little bear (voiced by Ben Whishaw) is on a new adventure. This time, he’s embarking on a trip to Peru after he and the rest of the Brown family get word that Paddington’s beloved Aunt Lucy (voiced by Imelda Staunton) misses him dearly.

The spontaneous trip abroad isn’t just for Paddington’s sake — the entire Brown family could do with a bonding experience, especially risk management associate Mr. Brown (Hugh Bonneville), the patriarch who seems to be forever involved in a mild-mannered mid-life crisis, who could afford to take a few more risks himself. What follows is as epic an adventure as the little bear has ever been on, full of river rapids, ancient curses, and llamas.

Meet The Browns (Again)

Since the bear in blue was last in cinemas, there’s been a plague, the Queen’s died, old sausage-fingers Charles took the throne, there have been exactly 61 prime ministers, and Hugh Grant got a career revival. It’s been a while. (You can see Hugh Grant terrorize girls in Heretic the next theater over.) Time’s passed for the Brown household, too, which adopted Paddington back in the first film. Daughter Judy (Madeleine Harris) is looking at colleges and considering flying the coop, and son Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) prefers to spend his time locked in his room eating cheesy crisps and playing video games. Mr. Brown and Mrs. Brown (Emily Mortimer) just want things to stay the same, but even Paddington has noticed that the Browns are starting to drift apart.

Family, both the one you find and the one you’re born with, is at the heart of Paddington in Peru. Paddington has been with the Browns for several years now, and this is only the second adventure they’re embarking on as a family (the first one involved a speeding train and Paddington nearly drowning, so the bar is pretty low for them). But when Paddington learns that he’s actually from a clan of isolated Peruvian bears, he has to weigh up the bear family he never met against the human family he’s always known.

It’s a tough tightrope for any story to walk, but it proves Paddington in Peru has more going on beneath its marmalade-sweet shell. The Paddington films have been metaphors for immigration, with the first turning Michael Bond’s wayward bear character (inspired by Jewish and British refugees during the war) into a symbol for, well, any migrant from anywhere. But then Brexit happened, and Paddington 2 used its xenophobic side character to further assert that kindness, respect, and empathy are more important British traits than condescension, rejection, and hate. Paddington in Peru continues digging into the immigrant allegory — this time, the question becomes, What happens when an emigrant has established themselves in a community — made friends, found family, maybe fallen in love — and is then offered the chance to return to where they came from? There’s an atmosphere of British exceptionalism that I think the liberals in this country [the United Kingdom] can get too high on, and Paddington in Peru’s message kicks that around a bit and lets the air out. It also redefines Paddington’s relationship to the Browns in a critical way and makes them realize that they need Paddington as much as Paddington ever needed them.

That’s the beauty of a character like Mr. Gruber (Jim Broadbent), who is a Hungarian emigrant who came to Britain to escape the Nazis. This is never explicitly stated in the films — Paddington is still a growing bear, he’s not quite ready to learn about the Third Reich — but Mr. Gruber is an example to Paddington and the viewer of a character who left their home country and found greener grasses elsewhere. He’s now a fixture of the community and Paddington’s best friend.

Ext. Peruvian Jungle

Paddington in Peru leaves London behind for the jungles of Peru. The plot is a bit more complicated than it lets on, and there’s generally much more danger and drama than I think your average traveler to Peru is likely to experience. (Paddington in Peru does engage in that time-honored British tradition of going to another country and absolutely making a mess of it.) Between the scenes of the Browns wandering aimlessly through the jungle, Paddington solving ancient pre-Columbian traps, and chases around temples, Paddington in Peru feels like a script for Dora and the Lost City of Gold 2 but Dora is replaced with Paddington. But you know what? That’s OK — Dora and the Lost City of Gold is a good movie, so I’m not too bothered.

I was worried that the scale of a globe-trotting river adventure film a la Jungle Cruise would feel out of character for a bear whose typical adventures involve Christmas shopping in a fancy department store or riding the bus. And truth be told, it does feel at times like a little much. But I’m glad that screenwriters Mark Burton, Jon Foster, James Lamont, Paul King, and Simon Farnaby took that multimillion-dollar budget and used it to spirit Paddington away somewhere he never visits in all his dozens of stories: his home country. Seeing Paddington run as a teenage bear through the rainforest is sublime, and my wife was particularly excited to see the Home for Retired Bears, as though that’s a selling point that anyone but die-hard Paddington fans like ourselves would buy a ticket for. We’re seeing the Home for Retired Bears? Shut up and take my money.

The new location allows the main cast to shine — particularly Hugh Bonneville, who’s really found a way to inhabit the role of Mr. Brown and control it and channel himself through it. It’s such a nuanced, funny, charming performance, and not at all like Mr. Brown in the novels. Yet you can’t imagine anyone other than Bonneville in the role. Henry gets the most slapstick in this film — Paddington’s previous films have seen the bear engaging in Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin pantomime, and there’s none of that here save for an early gag at a photo booth, but this one gives Mr. Brown most of the physical comedy. Bonneville asserts himself as a comedian of wonderful poise throughout this and every Paddington film, as capable of being the butt of a joke as he is just being an affable guy in the background. There’s never a dull scene if Mr. Brown is in it, and it’s reassuring to see that he’s just as passionate at carrying the Paddington brand as his CG bear co-star.

Mary Brown Has Been Recast!

In the role of Mary Brown, there’s been a casting change. Emily Mortimer, an actress as veteran and as sweet as Sally Hawkins, is the new matriarch, and she does a fine job. Hawkins’ portrayal is just so fundamentally different from Mortimer’s that it’s tough to imagine Mortimer as Mary in the past two films. She’s not really one to dive off a railroad bridge to rescue a drowning bear. Nor is she the kind of woman who would break into a neighbor’s house to search for clues. Even the Brown’s home, with is kooky interior decoration and inspired tree motif in the front hallway, feels like it was designed by Hawkins’ character rather than Mortimer’s. When it comes to the performance, Mortimer’s Mary is just as gentle, but she’s a confident and mature figure whereas Hawkins played a more adventurous but wounded woman. You get the sense in Paddington that Hawkins’ Mary is drawn to Paddington partially because of their shared whimsical nature; Mortimer’s Mary seems drawn to Paddington in a more maternal sense. She would invite Paddington back to her home because it’s the right thing to do rather than from a place of curiosity and playfulness. The vibe is neither worse nor better, just different — perhaps a little more Regular British Household than if Hawkins were still in the picture.

Speaking of absences, Paul King is no longer in the director’s chair. He helped write the film’s story but has otherwise vacated the franchise to make Wonka, a festering turd of a movie. He’s missed, for sure, but many critics have seen his departure as a reason to declare Paddington in Peru the runt of the litter. That’s a little much — it’s nowhere near the masterpiece status of Paddington 2, but it’s entertaining, lighthearted, and I did indeed cry a lot. It’s at least as good as the first one. Plus, Olivia Colman has a blast playing the most suspicious nun ever, and Antonio Banderas is continuing his hot streak of inexplicably showing up in sequels to franchises he has nothing to do with. (He was in Indy 5 last summer.)

Director Dougal Wilson lacks King’s knack for controlled chaos and domino-effect comedy sequences. He doesn’t really nail the chase sequences, either, which feel a bit airless in this one. King brought a sense of ceaseless whimsy to the production — every character, no matter how minor, felt developed and properly utilized, every set felt necessary and smartly designed, and every scene felt substantive and important, comedically if not narratively. The same economy of storytelling is not exercised here, and some scenes do feel a bit like you’re waiting for a joke to land. But on the whole, the script is still strong, giving each member of the Brown family an arc throughout the film that wraps up tidily by the end. There’s even a visually inventive sequence toward the start — Paddington 2 had a pop-up book sequence, and this one has a heartwarming family scene brought to life with oil paint, and it WILL make you cry. Be warned.

Where Wilson’s film stands head and shoulders above its predecessors is in its computer animation. Paddington is on-screen here as much as he was in the first two films, but in them, he always seemed a degree removed from his surroundings. Even in Paddington 2, sometimes it was hard to believe the bear was there in a three-dimensional way. Paddington in Peru has no such problems, and the bear is the most realistic he’s ever been rendered.

Conclusion

You don’t need to have seen the past two Paddington adventures to appreciate this one, though there is the odd callback. This is a fine film for newcomers. Paddington, like Jesus, enters our lives when we most need Him. I found Paddington in college, and He guided me to absolution, and I have been preaching His Word of kindness and marmalade ever since. (The bread is the body of the Paddington, and the marmalade the blood.) But now, Paddington in Peru arrived at a time when I’m undergoing the visa process myself, trying to formalize my departure from an America that I do not recognize anymore. Like Paddington, you can return to your home, but you’ll always find it different than before and perhaps a little strange. There’s that familiar smell of the jungle, but the trees don’t seem to be in the same places. The birds sing a different tune. There are people missing who were once there to hug. I’m sure many students of cinema will heed the recommendations of the cinephiles who have been preaching the Paddington gospel for years and will discover a bittersweet story about self-determination and the importance of family. If any of them find themselves at odds with their country or their family, this movie will likely deliver. Paddington, of all bears, always knew to savor the bittersweet.

Paddington in Peru is currently playing theatrically in the United Kingdom. It releases in the United States on February 14, 2025.