Christopher Robin : Nostalgia Done Right

Christopher Robin (2018)

Directed by Marc Forster

Story by Alex Ross Perry

Screenplay by Alex Ross Perry, Allison Schroeder and Tom McCarthy

Based on the characters created by A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepard

        My earliest memories of Winnie the Pooh came primarily from the old Disney shorts like Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968). I remember watching those kinds of Pooh cartoons and being amused by them, but I have to say that it never really made me want to go search out more adventures of Pooh and his friends. Then, I read the original books. I found the adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin, Piglet, Tigger and the others far more endearing when told by A.A. Milne with the illustrations by E.H. Shepard. They managed to convey the childlike charm of playing with your stuffed animals in fun adventures. Since reading the books though I never watched anymore Winnie the Pooh shows or movies from Disney. Part of it has to do with being too old to watch what they produced and that I feel they fail to capture what made me love Pooh and his friends from the original books. Fortunately, the latest film, Christopher Robin, manages to give me what I felt was missing whenever Winnie the Pooh has been brought to the screen either big or small.

        Since going away to a boarding school at young age, Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor) has gotten married, served his country in wartime and even has a daughter. But over the years he seems to have lost the ability to have fun and even smile as he has become a bit of a workaholic to the point that his wife Evelyn (Hayley Atwell) and daughter Madeline (Bronte Carmichael) are beginning to worry about him and even be disappointed in how he is turning out. This is exacerbated by the fact that Christopher Robin must find a way cut costs at the company he works for without having to let employees go and that means he can’t go to the cottage with his family for the weekend.

        Meanwhile in the Hundred Acre Wood, Winnie the Pooh (voiced by Jim Cummings) wakes up to discover his friends have all disappeared. Pooh then proceeds to go to London to find Christopher Robin (who thinks he has just cracked by seeing Pooh again) and get his help. Christopher Robin then goes back to the Hundred Acre Wood (rather begrudgingly) with Pooh to help him out and maybe rediscover his inner child in the process.

        This film has a pretty clever set up. It treats the Christopher Robin in the books as a person that grows up into an adult with responsibilities encountering his old friends that one would assume would be only in the realm of fairy tales. I love the parts where real people in London (including Christopher’s own wife and daughter) see Pooh and company doing things and begin to wonder if they have gone mad. The merging of all these elements sort of reminds me of the movie Hook…that is if Hook was good or even watchable.

        The one thing that caught my eye right off the bat by watching the trailers and at the beginning was that they went back to classic E.H. Shepard designs for Pooh and his friends. I never liked the way they were redesigned by Disney for their cartoons as I felt they looked too pristine and…well…too cartoony. I always thought that Pooh and his friends had more charm and were far more endearing when they looked more like stuffed animals that a little kid would play with. Disney’s cartoony versions just look like every other anthropomorphic character they came out with. Lame! Pooh and his friends are recreated in the E.H. Shepard fashion with gorgeous and convincing CGI without losing their endearing nature.

        The two characters that are the focus are of course the titular Christopher Robin and Pooh. The two play off each other very well especially when Christopher Robin tries to explain how the real world works to Pooh and responds in a confused manner as a small child would. I love the moments when they are talking to each other about what is more important (Christopher Robin’s documents or a balloon in this case) and because Pooh harkens back to a time when things weren’t complicated and balloons were wonderous and fun we can’t help but side with Pooh. I admit that I felt sad when Christopher Robin as an adult gets impatient with Pooh. Seeing Pooh respond with confusion and a certain amount of disappointment with Christopher Robin is not something I really expected to see out of this film and this causes Christopher Robin to do a little bit of self-reflection because of this. I liked that the key to rediscovering his inner child is learning to play again and that would be key to finding his other friends like Tigger, Eeyore and others and reconnect with Pooh and his family.

           Pooh, by the way, sort of steals the show with his mannerisms, his thoughts, amusing ways of seeing the world and childlike behavior. Jim Cummings does a fantastic job voicing him and brings the warmth and innocence that everyone is familiar with. Pooh is the friend that I and perhaps tons of other kids wished to have had as a kid and would have loved to share a jar of honey with him.

        The acting is from all the actors (either on screen or by voice alone) are for the most part pretty good but I must admit that I wish Hayley Atwell was given more to do in the film as I seriously believe she was vastly underutilized here. Also, Christopher Robin’s boss in the film came off as an overly cartoony villain and he kind of got of my nerves. And the third act kind of derails an otherwise poignant tale of self-reflection. There is a whole end sequence involving Madeline joining Pooh and his friends to give Christopher Robin his important documents as Tigger replace those with mementos from the Hundred Acre Wood. I understand what this was trying to accomplish and why Madeline would want to do it (sorry, I won’t spoil anything further) but it felt somewhat out of place and tacked on. I suppose it was added to give some energy and hijinks in a film that didn’t really need any more. All I am saying is that the end with Madeline and Pooh & company could have been done in a manner that fit the tone with the rest of the film. But on the bright side, at least it didn’t take up most of the film.

        Although a bit uneven at times, Christopher Robin is very enjoyable film and serves as a good reminder of what makes Winnie the Pooh so endearing. Under Disney, I felt Winnie the Pooh was growing a bit stale especially with the overly cartoony rendering that turned me off for so long. Seeing this new film was a reminder that going back to simpler times and ways of thinking is not always a bad thing and in plenty of cases the best way to go. It was also very nostalgic in going back to the charm of the source material, but it was nostalgia done correctly.

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