Journeying back to the Hundred Acre Wood.
As much as I tried not to, I couldn’t help but approach the new Disney tale Christopher Robin in a similar way to that of Steven Spielberg’s Hook. There’s no disguising the similarities between both films, particularly their messages of rediscovering the beauty and joy of the everyday through a childlike sensibility. While the much-maligned Hook worked in the real world scenes and the haunting flashback interlude, all sequences set in the movie’s fantasy world still feel hammy, phony and cheesy to no end. With Christopher Robin, director Marc Forster doesn’t sidestep the former film’s problems, but rather flips them, giving his audience a completely bipolar movie experience aiming to please everyone, even if it dies trying.
Christopher Robin tells the story of the small boy from the beloved storybooks who has grown up into an overworked middle management businessman played by Ewan McGregor. Though Christopher is a loving father and husband to wife Evelyn (Hayley Atwell) and daughter Madeline (Bronte Carmichael), it’s his work for a struggling luggage company which keeps him occupied. When Christopher is forced to stay behind and work during his family’s weekend getaway to a cottage in the country, he feels more guilty than ever. In the midst of his gloom, Christopher is shocked to encounter his childhood friend Winnie the Pooh on a park bench, who has come to seek his help in returning to the Hundred Acre Wood in an effort to locate his missing friends.
When I say that Christopher Robin exhibits the opposite sort of problems as Hook, what I mean is that it doesn’t quite know how to function outside of the Hundred Acre Wood. The scenes featuring a grown up Christopher are serviceable at best, providing a more than adequate glimpse into the stifled and compromised life led by the main character. It’s a shame that these sequences between Christopher and his family remain rather lifeless since rooting for a character such as this might prove tricky enough as it is for some. Not only do things fail to improve when Pooh and company enter the world of bustling London, they actually get worse as all of the beloved characters are reduced to cheap laughs and obvious situations such as destroying Christopher’s kitchen and enduring a bumpy ride in the back of a moving truck. These moments are clunkily handled as their desperation for laughs become more apparent and very nearly threaten to undo the magic for which these characters are well-known for.
It’s the times when Christopher Robin ventures into the Hundred Acre Wood when the beauty and bliss of Forster’s film is felt by all. There are moments featuring shenanigans with all of the characters, including Eeyore almost falling down a waterfall, Christopher fighting an imaginary heffalump and the latter experiencing a surreal vision after having fallen into a river (one of the film’s most imaginative sequences), which all have a certain kind of energy with the power to unite both kids and grown-ups through the pure, unadulterated joy within them. By contrast, the quieter instances in which Christopher Robin allows the friendship between the main protagonist and his favorite bear to be explored is incredibly moving, particularly in the pearls of homespun wisdom the bear so innocently spouts. “Doing nothing often leads to the very best kind of something,” he states at one point. Such lines ensure good-natured laughs from the audience, but also prove deserving of admiration for the surprisingly soulful life philosophy they give out. Case in point, the moment when Pooh offers up advice to a frustrated Christopher who is trying to find his way out of the Hundred Acre Wood: “I always get to where I’m going by walking away from where I’ve been,” he thoughtfully remarks.
McGregor owns this film and helps sell the concept during times when suspending disbelief becomes a bit tricky. Yet his belief in the material is clear. Christopher Robin represents the second collaboration between McGregor and Forster, with their first being the underrated 2005 thriller Stay. In both cases, Forster managed to give the actor enough room to explore his vulnerability in ways other filmmakers haven’t been able to; and their films have been all the better for it. Atwell is saddled with a somewhat colorless role, but remains a lovely presence while Carmichael soars as Madeline, giving a sensitivity and soul to a well-written “kid” role. As for the voice actors, the legendary Jim Cummings hasn’t lost a single beat as Pooh, remaining in touch with the character’s beauty and innocence. Of the remaining voice cast, it’s Brad Garrett as Eeyeore who emerges as the film’s star, offering up an ongoing stream of one-liners infused with the driest of wit.
It took a while for Christopher Robin to get going before I decided that I was actually enjoying what was playing out on screen. If there’s a flaw that’s perhaps more hard to ignore than anything outside the Hundred Acre Wood, it’s the film’s somewhat desperate aim to exist as a movie for everyone. It manages this in the end, providing enough moments for the two key demographics which make up the audience. The thing about the movie’s desperation however is this feeling of the filmmakers’ own sense of self-awareness that’s attached. There are times when Christopher Robin feels a bit hesitant to embrace its premise with reckless abandon, instead keeping almost too much of a tight leash on its sense of playfulness. The result of this method is that it takes longer for the audience to have fun. Still, in an age when grown adults attend “Eyeore’s Birthday Party” every year here in Austin, nostalgia will almost always hit home, especially if that home has a silly bear waiting within it.
